These Faces and These Places
by UnstableIntention
Summary: Five years after leaving Beacon Hills, Stiles is coming home, and he's not the same lovable goof-ball he used to be. Older, stronger, he can hold his own against almost anything now, but he's still no hero, and with the threat of the nogitsune and a deadly dementia hovering over him, things are only going to get darker.
1. Chapter 1

Five years.

Well, almost five years.

Still.

He was going back.

Stiles finished stuffing the last of his leather-bound notebooks into his footlocker and sat down carefully on the lid, fighting to get the latches closed. A muffled clink emanated from the inside, the sound of glass jars shifting in their cotton beds. He'd been surprised that he was able to fit everything inside. Five years was a long time to accumulate the kind of things he did. Books, tomes, crystals, stones and ashes and any number of plants that had all been carefully catalogued in Stiles messy handwriting, even more sloppy now because he made his notes in Gaelic.

If he was going back, he was going back prepared.

Because hey, this was Beacon Hills they were talking about. As a murderous psychopath once said right before he'd paralyzed him, it was like a freakin' Halloween party out there.

And this time Stiles was going in battle-ready.

Something prickled at the back of his neck, like snowflakes falling, and he turned slowly round to the open doorway knowing that Pheelan would be standing there, filling it up with his six-four frame, big, bulky, familiar. The scent of the werewolf was strong in Stiles' nose, like the sun on a wheat field or the rain and chill and fog of the moors that swept his curly hair into a mess and caught in the knit of his sweater. His dark eyes had flicked right past Stiles' face, gone to settle on the scuffed and stickered trunk that he'd helped to cart halfway round the world, and there was something a little somber around his mouth.

"You're leaving then?" he asked in Gaelic, the language that only passed between them when they were trying not to choke on their words.

Pain sounded prettier in Gaelic.

"My dad's been hurt," Stiles replied, and that would have been enough. They'd been together for three years, and that would have been enough.

But Stiles would ask.

They weren't in love, and they both knew it, but still, Stiles would ask.

Because he knew. He _knew_ that there was no way he could do this without Phee. Couldn't face his past without knowing there was _someone _in his corner, someone he trusted so completely and thoroughly that he could have them at his back. Because even if they weren't in love, even if they both knew it, he trusted Pheelan.

"Phee…"

"Yes."

Stiles head jerked up sharply, and he looked at the werewolf with hot tears in the corners of his eyes. "You didn't even let me finish," he accused in English, and the other man stepped into the room and pulled Stiles into his massive chest, his thick arms banding around him like steel.

"If you want me there little buddy, I'm there."

A minute passed and Stiles just savored the feeling of being held, of being caught in a strong embrace by someone who cared just enough. Because that was what he and Phee had. They cared. They might even die for the other. But they weren't in love. And because they weren't in love, they couldn't hurt each other.

"I can't do this alone," Stiles choked as he fought down the barrage of memories that he had long since locked away, memories that suddenly threated to drown him.

"Breathe," Phee warned him, and Stiles did. The werewolf had learned a long time ago to sense a threatening panic attack. He'd once told Stiles that they made him smell like burning sugar, taste like caramel that had sat on the burner just a little too long, and Stiles had wondered why the others hadn't ever told him.

"Someone called you?" he asked quietly, and Stiles shook his head.

"No. No one knows where I am, how to get in touch with me. Just Dad. But I saw. I _saw_."

Phee didn't have to ask. Stiles nightmares had started a little over two years ago, when they had settled in with Pheelan's grandmother and the boy had begun to really learn about the things he was capable of doing. Sometimes he woke up screaming, but Phee knew that it was the nights he was quiet, the nights that he crawled silently into the werewolf's bed, threw an arm around his waist, and began to glow with a soft, amber light that the dreams had been real.

"I was trying to sleep," Stiles said, breaking from his hold and dropping down onto the trunk, rubbing a hand roughly over eyes that were too dark, too bruised for his liking. "Just trying to get a few minutes…"

"What happened?"

Phee almost flinched at the look that crossed Stiles face. It was hard, dark, like when they'd first met three and a half years ago in the mountains in Romania.

"Werewolves happened," he said in a cold, wooden voice. "What else?"

"Well since you didn't flash steam me when I walked in, I take it we're talking specific werewolves?"

"They should know better," Stiles muttered viciously, and Phee immediately stepped between his knees and grabbed onto his upper arms hard.

"Snap out of it Stiles!" he barked. "We don't have time for you to go all wicked witch of the west!"

Stiles blinked, looked down at Phee's hands on him and his eyes cleared. "Not a witch," he grumbled as he stood, skirting around the werewolf to the dresser where he began to stuff jeans into a duffel bag.

"So you've said," Phee murmured, almost to himself. "I'll go pack. Speak to móraí. She'll worry if I don't."

Stiles' hands stilled on the dresser. "Tell her I'm sorry," he murmured, back to Gaelic again.

"She'd make scarves out of both of us if I did," Phee chuckled.

Stiles turned and there was sadness in his eyes as he looked the big wolf up and down. "Thanks," he murmured, and Phee's smile fell.

"He'll be alright Stiles," he said quietly. He waited until Stiles met his gaze, until he nodded, then slipped from the room and went to find his grandmother.

Stiles fisted his hands tightly, felt the stinging buzz in his fingertips return, like he'd touched a hot stove. To distract himself, he did the calculations in his head; two hours to get to the airport, another eleven on the plane. Not accounting for weather or traffic, he would be back in Beacon Hills at four o'clock in the afternoon on a Friday.

He wondered if that mattered.

He suspected it didn't.

But it did mean that he would be going straight from the plane to the hospital, and so he would chose his wardrobe with care. He wasn't the same high school goofball that he used to be - he was a man, a man who had just celebrated his twenty-third birthday and who wore a square of rough stubble around his mouth that gave him a dark and deadly look. No more buzz cuts and graphic tees, his hair was long enough to actually run his fingers through and his boxers were tight and black, no cartoons anywhere in sight. He told himself he wasn't scared of going back, but as he paced nervously over to his tiny closet, riffled through his clothes, he knew he was picking out armor.

Close-fitting navy blue jeans.

Heavy black work boots.

A plain grey t-shirt under a black hoodie. Actually, Phee's hoodie. It was two sizes too big for him but it was warm, and it smelled like the other man, enough that Stiles' more-than-human-but-less-than-wolf senses could easily pick it up. It would mask his scent, at least for a while, and when it came down to the line, might put enough of a marker on him that he wouldn't be hassled too much.

Lastly Stiles slipped into his leather jacket. It was bright red and hit him at mid-thigh, with a wide, triangular collar and belted cuffs that he wore open, the black of his sweatshirt showing through at his wrists and neck. Phee had laughed and called him Little Red for months after he'd made the purchase, but even the werewolf had to admit it looked good on him, the hidden inner pockets perfect for stashing all the bits and pieces Stiles like to carry with him.

Speaking of bits and pieces…

Stiles moved to his dresser and slid open the top drawer, pulled out a sleek, black handgun that was cool and heavy in his hand. He had already slipped his wooden baseball bat into his duffel bag, but it was more of a sentimental thing these days than actual protection. He'd carried it for three years and it had served him fairly well, until the day came that he had needed more firepower than it could offer and he'd picked up the compact little Ruger. He was a damn near perfect shot, always had been, and with the 40. Caliber bullets he made himself out of silver, iron, and a few other choice elements, he could stop everything from a rampaging werewolf to a fairy.

And yeah.

Fairies existed.

Fuckers.

Checking the clip, Stiles holstered the gun along his ribs underneath his left arm in the sling he'd had custom built into the jacket. With the stiff, fitted cut of the leather you'd never know he was carrying, and that was just the way Stiles liked it.

"You packing?"

"All done," Stiles replied, turning to zip up his duffel and throw it over his shoulder.

"That's not what I meant," Phee smirked, stepping in close to Stiles and straightening the hang of his jacket over his shoulders. "You're wearing my shirt. Thinking of making someone jealous?"

"Thought hadn't even crossed my mind," Stiles replied truthfully. "But the longer it takes for them to get on to me, the happier I'll be. And if they think I'm yours when they finally do catch up with us… well."

Pheelan smiled, really smiled this time, a smile that might look hard and a little bit wild to anyone but Stiles, who knew him best. He'd had the same idea, Stiles could tell, by the way he'd dressed. The man was huge but really a teddy bear at heart. Still, he was cut, and the grey wife-beater he wore underneath his heavy black jacket did nothing for the imagination. He looked the picture of a god-damned Navy SEAL, combat boots and black cargo pants tight across impressive thighs. Stiles licked his lips and let his eyes touch on the man's right bicep where he knew the tattoo of a circle and a triangle locked together, burned into his skin with as much meaning as any of his own held. The army-style jacket did nothing to block the breadth of his chest, zippers and epaulets only mimicking the long sloping lines of his shoulders. Where he was usually all soft sweaters and thick cable-knit, he'd dressed to kick asses and take names, and he'd done it for Stiles.

Reaching up, he latched his fingers into Phee's hair, dragging him down for a hard, punishing kiss.

Minutes later, when they both had to resurface for air, Stiles attempted to fix the mess he'd made of the man's honey-colored locks, but the wolf knocked his hands away, smoothing the curls back out into the careful, sophisticated styled he'd tamed it down to.

"They'll hate you," Stiles murmured, mostly to himself as he brushed his thumb over Phee's jaw, savoring the harsh rasp of his perpetual stubble. "Especially if they think you're mine."

Phee's hands stilled in his hair, fell to his sides. "They won't if you don't want them to Stiles," he said, his voice low and rough. "If you want me to stay in the hotel, I will. If you want me to be the silent, mysterious bodyguard, I will. But if you want me to play the gorgeous, dangerous, devoted boyfriend you deserve… that's what I'll be."

Stiles stared up at the man he wished he could love and stroked his thumb over his soft, full lower lip.

"Just be Phee," he answered back. "That's all I need you to be. Just Phee."

"That I can do," he murmured. "But think about what I said." Reaching around Stiles, he grabbed the handles on either side of the footlocker and lifted it as though it didn't weigh almost as much as he did. "You haven't seen any of them in five years. You've put on thirty-two pounds of solid muscle, you know more about knocking a werewolf on their ass than I do, and you're fucking gorgeous. Waltzing in with a smokin' hot lover in tow would be the icing on the cake."

Tossing him a wink, Phee slipped out the door and headed towards the car.

Stiled swallowed and turned to look in the mirror above his dresser. His eyes were dark, much darker than they used to be, and there were deep bruises beneath them. Half the time he looked like he was on death's door, but the rest of the time, like now? He looked like a wraith. Like a shadow-God come to claim the allegiance of the Earth, and that looked hella-sexy doing it. Stiles cast his reflection a cold, sneering grin, grabbed his duffel off the floor from where he'd dropped it.

Maybe he would put on a little show when he got back to Beacon Hills.

He had a bone to pick with a certain wolf-pack after all.

What was the harm in enjoying the process?


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles blinked himself awake twenty minutes from touchdown. He'd felt like he'd been asleep for days when it had really only been a handful of hours, drool all over the leather arm rest under his cheek. Sitting up, he swiped his sleeve over his face and the cushion, glad they were on a private plane and that the owner of said plane was still snoring lightly on the couch across the aisle. Pheelan came from old family and old money, and just this once Stiles had been happy to take advantage of it. The little jet had been waiting for them on the tarmac, and he hadn't had to check his trunk or his hand gun at the gate. His papers and his passport were all in order, and Callaghan, Phee's pilot, hadn't blinked an eye before carefully stowing their luggage and getting them into the air.

Of course, Stiles' mostly fake status as an air marshal didn't hurt either.

Stepping into the little bathroom in the back, he splashed cold water over his face and stared at himself in the mirror. He was pale, more so than he'd ever been, but he supposed living in a place like Ireland would do that to most anyone. He'd known over the years that his eyes were darkening, that it gave him a wild and wicked look especially with his longer, windswept hair and the sharp edge of his beard, but sometimes he wondered if the devil hadn't taken up residence somewhere in his chest. Because sometimes, when he looked in the mirror and his eyes glinted at him and his teeth showed sharp and white out of the corner of his smirk, he didn't recognize himself.

He supposed that was all right if they didn't recognize him either.

Back in the cabin, Phee was sitting up, stretching out and yawning wide enough to swallow the sun with teeth that had gone long and sharp. Stiles dropped down at his side and leaned back against the wolf's shoulder, his fingers twisting in the strings of his hoodie until Phee loops an arm around him and pulls him in tight.

"Close your eyes," he commands softly, and Stiles does, though they both know he won't sleep. The two hours he caught weren't nearly enough, but it was more than he got on any given night, and they would both take that as a victory. So no. Phee isn't asking him to sleep.

Slowly, a low and steady glow begins to emanate from beneath Stiles' skin, filling the dimmed cabin and surrounding them both in an amber light. The tension that has ratcheted tight inside of him leaches away and beneath him Pheelan hums and stretches, soaking up the warmth that came off Stiles' skin.

Stiles had discovered he was a Touchstone just two months after meeting Phee. There'd been an instant spark between the two of them, and while he'd known the man was really a wolf, he hadn't cared. They spent those first two months backpacking through a mountain range in Romania, happy, content, learning the ways that the other moved and spoke and thought. The first time they'd kissed it had been explosive, like a spark catching hold until the fire had all but consumed them, and the first time they'd fallen into bed together was like heaven coming for him. Stiles had fallen asleep draped across Phee's chest with the sound of rain coming down all around them, wind buffeting the sides of their little tent, and when they'd woken up in the morning Stiles had been shining like a lantern, creating a tiny globe of warmth and comfort and light.

Needless to say he had panicked just a little bit.

Wasn't every day that you lit up like a human glow stick.

Luckily for him, Pheelan O'Rourke was more than well-versed in werewolf lore, and more than happy to share what he knew. And so he'd explained, about Touchstones and how they were the human counterparts of a wolf pack, how they were like a lynchpin that served to keep it together, keep it stable and grounded. Even more, how they could impart physical, mental, and emotional healing through touch, how they could offer peace and comfort simply by being.

Stiles didn't exactly think this the coolest super-power to have. Werewolf catnip. Didn't seem to help him any.

Sure it explained a lot of the way things had been, what with him constantly being drawn into the shit-storm that was the supernatural, constantly kidnapped or thrown to the literal wolves, but that all pretty much sucked.

Luckily for him, there was more to it.

It seemed glowing was a two-way street.

Physical healing, emotional rest, these things he got too when he reached out for a wolf, when he reached out for Pheelan. It wasn't enough, especially in the last few years when he'd really come into his own, learned all the things that he could do by channeling the energy that sparked light and life in him, but it was something.

It was something.

And when it came down to the wire and he'd needed that spark, he found it could be a weapon too.

Because by withholding what he was, keeping back the glow, he could cause pain.

And yeah, it sounded really bad when you heard it like that, but it had helped him in the past. It was sort of like a built-in sucker punch in a fight, healing just out of reach. And the more he thought about it and the more he learned, the more sense those last few months in Beacon Hills had made.

Because Phee had told him.

When a pack, when an _alpha_, rejected their Touchstone, when they pushed it away and refused the natural order, things would quickly spin apart.

And if that didn't describe the chaos of his last few months at home, what with the alpha pack and the kidnappings and the desertion and the whole, great, awful mess, he didn't know what did.

But he'd been right.

In the end, _that_ was what being a Touchstone meant to him.

He _had _been rejected, pushed to the side, out of the way into some dark corner, and he'd known it.

Callaghan's voice came over the intercom announcing their descent into California and Stiles' light flickered out, leaving him feeling cold and unsettled. Shifting out of Pheelan's embrace, he shrugged deeper into his hoodie and slipped back into his jacket, reloading and re-holstering his Ruger before buckling into a seat. He watched through the window as the United States came up to meet them, a country he hadn't stepped foot in in a long time. Still, he was an American citizen, technically a deputy air marshall. And he was pretty sure Phee had been checked onto the flight log as some kind of big-shot international law enforcement, if not some kind of international rock star. So it shouldn't be too hard to get out of the little private airport.

How wrong he was.

Stepping down out of the plane was hell. As soon as his boots touched the tarmac, a dozen dark shadows swept through his mind, grey energy swarming in his chest like the memories of drowning. And yeah. Stiles remembered drowning.

Wasn't exactly the welcome wagon he'd been hoping for.

Hell, he'd have been happy as a clam if he'd been ignored completely.

A big warm hand fell onto his shoulder, squeezed, and suddenly Stiles could breathe again, just enough to get moving and cross the pavement to the car that waited for them. Two men in reflective vests were helping to roll Stiles' footlocker over to the big black SUV, and he stepped forward to stop them, opening the trunk and extracting a hard-sided black leather satchel before waving them forward to lift it into the car. Phee had to help but it was accomplished well enough without his assistance, and so instead he stepped back, staring up at the sky as he slipped the strap of his bag over his head and tightened it across his chest.

It was early February, and he could feel a storm coming. The barometric pressure was rising, the sky pushing down on him as steel colored clouds swirled overhead.

Stiles shivered.

"Smells like snow."

He could smell it too. Icy, biting, a little like apples. He wondered what it smelled like to Phee.

"Guess we brought the weather with us," Stiles mumbled in reply. "Don't get a lot of the white stuff here."

Pheelan didn't respond, only caught the keys from one of the luggage jockeys with a nod and climbed into the driver's seat. He had the engine started before Stiles even moved towards the passenger's side, his bag clutched tightly on his lap.

"How far are we from Beacon Hills?" he asked, and Stiles thrust his chin towards the east. "Twenty minutes if you take the highway. There's a sign at one of the exits for the land preserve…" He frowned. "At least there was."

"Your dad will be happy to see you Stiles."

"I know that."

"Is it enough?"

Stiles turned to look at the wolf who kept his dark gaze trained carefully out the window as he maneuvered onto the interstate. "Is what enough? Is his being happy to see me enough to make up for that fact that I have to be back here, have to face all of them?"

Phee didn't answer, just flicked him a quick look and went back to watching the road.

Stiles sank down in his seat, stared bitterly out the window. "I don't know," he muttered. "I love him, more than anyone…"

"I know that Stiles. I never once thought you didn't."

Stiles shut his eyes and breathed through his nose. "It's been five years," he mumbled. "I haven't seen him face to face in five years. I know we called and we Skyped, but it's not the same, and I'm…"

"Scared."

He opened his eyes again, looked up at the heavy thunderheads that were sweeping along ahead of them.

"Yeah."

The rest of the drive was quiet, Stiles only opening his mouth to give short, concise directions. Memories came flooding back to him as they drove, deep-rooted familiarity with this place he'd grown up in setting him adrift, and it was solemn and painful, and he didn't doubt that Phee could sense his distress. Still he didn't push for anything more, didn't reach out, and it was one of the reasons Stiles wished he could love the big blonde Irish wolf. He supposed he should really just count his blessings and thank god they'd come in on the west side of town, so that he didn't have to pass the high school or the lacrosse field or the police station. If he was really lucky his dad's room would be empty, and he wouldn't have to talk to anyone before he set to work.

As Phee pulled into the visitors' lot and cut the engine, Stiles double checked his bag, making sure he had everything he would need to work his magic. He'd already done it half a dozen times back in Ireland, before he'd packed it into the top of his trunk and told himself firmly that he'd be there in time. Climbing down from the SUV, he rounded the bumper and met Pheelan on the side-walk, stood toe-to-toe with the wolf who towered over him and made him look like a stick figure in comparison. Reaching out, he grabbed onto Phee's lapels and pulled him even closer, staring at his collarbones while he smoothed his hands down over his chest.

"Do something for me while we're here," he murmured, and Phee's hand wound into his hair, tipping his face until Stiles met his eyes. Reaching into one of his pockets, he fumbled for a minute before drawing out a silver pentagram on a chain. "Wear this?"

Phee frowned, but he took the charm and turned it back and forth, considering.

"Thought you weren't a witch," he said finally, reaching up to fix the chain around his neck and dropping the charm beneath the edge of his wife-beater.

"I'm not," Stiles answered back by rote. Placing his hand over Phee's heart, his fingers just touching the edge of the charm, he looked down at his feet. "It's a ward," he explained to their boots. "Protection. And I know you don't think you need it, but trust me. This is Beacon Hills. You need it."

"Hey," Phee urged, pulling Stiles's face back up with a finger and thumb beneath his chin. "It's on, yeah? It's gonna be all right." Dropping a quick kiss onto Stiles lips, he stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Let's go in and find your dad."

Stiles nodded, turned to face the entrance of the hospital he'd be in and out of so many times, the hospital he'd lost his mother in, and swallowed hard. "Did you know," he asked nervously, trying to distract himself as they drew closer and closer to the doors, "A pentagram used to mean that you were about to become a werewolf's victim?"

Phee laughed.


	3. Chapter 3

The hospital was just like he remembered it, but he supposed that most were the same. Always a little too cold, the cloying, sweet scent of sterility not quite hiding the sour stench of sickness and the dull copper of blood and bruises. His boots squeaked on freshly-mopped tile, and his hands might've started to shake if he hadn't felt Pheelan's looming presence at his back. Deciding the safest plan was to skip the 'family or friend' inquiry altogether, he waited at the end of the hallway until the nurses station cleared and then slipped behind the desk, punching in the five year old code that he still remembered and crossing his fingers.

The computer chimed and Stiles smirked.

Some things never changed.

A few taps on the keys and he had everything he needed, logging out and looking both ways before he headed back down the hallway and caught Phee's elbow, pulling him away from the waiting area and down to an adjacent wing.

"Same old tricks," Phee grinned, and there was a familiarity in the words that warmed Stiles' heart.

"He's down at the end," he said quietly, eyes scanning back and forth as a nurse bustled past them, his shoulders up and his head low. "Your nose is better than mine. He got company?"

Phee lifted his head almost imperceptibly, his nostrils flaring as he scented the air. "Two or three," he replied, "But it's old. They've been gone since noon."

"They brought him in early last night," Stiles muttered to himself.

He would've been out of surgery fast; there wasn't a lot the docs could do for wolf bites, even after so many years, but from what he'd gotten out of his dream no major organs had been hit. Blood loss and the threat of turning were the Sheriff's biggest concerns. The hospital would have taken care of the first, he would take care of the other.

He wasn't ready when he slipped into the darkened room, not for the sight of his father, pale and worn, collapsed back against the sheets while a dozen machines whirled and beeped around him. Not for the sight of the pain creasing his face, for the red haze that hung in the air over his bed. The magic that would twist his body into something else was already starting to take root, burrowing into his organs and contaminating his blood, and it was almost enough to make Stiles choke. Moving to his father's side, he ghosted one hand over his hair, cupped the side of his face as his eyes traced the thick cotton bandaging that looped around his chest and up over one shoulder, hiding the mauling he'd seen his father receive in his nightmare, the bite, the clawing slashes.

"Dad," Stiles whispered, and his voice broke, a single tear streaming down his face. "Oh god Dad, I am so sorry. This never should have happened."

Picking up his father's hand, Stiles held it to his chest as he closed his eyes tightly, desperate to hold back the waterworks as his heart broke. It had been five years, and for the first time he could have kicked himself for leaving. He should have come home.

"You need to go," he choked in Phee's general direction, and he felt the big wolf shift on his feet beside him.

"I know," he said, and his voice was low and gravelly. "Just don't wanna leave you like this."

"You can tell then," Stiles murmured, his eyes locked on his father's face.

"Yes." A beat of silence passed before Phee spoke again. "I can smell it on him. In his blood. But you can fix this Stiles. The moon's two weeks away, and I've seen you work with less."

Stiles swallowed again, nodded. "Don't open the door until I call you, alright?"

Pheelan nodded, squeezed Stiles' forearm, and then he was gone, slipping out of the room and closing the door silently behind him.

It took him a few minutes to get moving. He could have fallen apart right there, frozen at his father's side and simply stared, soaked him in, if there wasn't a time constraint on what he was going to try to do. Putting his bag down on the chair in the corner, he extracted chalk, four white candles, a jar each of mountain ash and of mistletoe. It was difficult, what he was going to attempt, and painful, both for him and the one he was trying to help, but it had worked in the past. With enough time, and far enough away from the moonlight, he'd been successful in pulling out the bite, pulling out the wolf from the one who'd only just been bitten and had yet to change.

Drawing himself a circle at the foot of his father's bed, he stepped into the center and shook a pinch of ash into his hand, capped the jar and _saw _it surrounding him. The matching circles tattooed in heavy black ink on his wrists, at the back of his neck and the base of his spine all burned, and when he opened his eyes again the ash had roped around him twice over the chalk outline. Sitting down cross-legged in the circle, he placed the candles around the perimeter at equal points; north, south, east, and west. Head, heart, health, and hands. Sparking each wick with a small silver lighter from his pocket, he rested his hands on his knees, breathed out, and began to chant.

Twenty-five minutes later he knocked on the window of the door and Pheelan leapt from his position against the opposite wall, slipped back inside just in time to catch Stiles before he collapsed onto the floor. Guiding him into a chair, he was quick to scoop up the scattered jars and candles, to wave his hand through the air to disperse the wisping curls of sulfur and burning herbs. Kneeling at Stiles' side to pack away the paraphernalia into his bag, he handed up the jar of mistletoe, familiar enough with the process to know it was still needed. Climbing shakily to his feet, Stiles moved to his father's bedside and slipped a sprig beneath his pillow before tossing the jar back to Phee and kicking away the circle of ash and chalk with his boots. The werewolf cast a nervous glance at the man on the bed, his pulse elevated, his pillow soaked in sweat, and swallowed.

"Did it work?" he asked carefully, watching a pale, clammy Stiles scuff around the floor.

"Well enough," Stiles replied, his voice hoarse. "Pretty sure I got it all, but I'll need to come back tomorrow and make sure."

Phee nodded, hefted the bag and swung it over his shoulder. "Do you want to stay?" he asked, and Stiles shook his head.

"I can't," he choked, leaning over to press his forehead to his father's, to breathe in the scent of him, and the arm that held him up against the bar of the bed shook so hard beneath his weight that it rattled. "I gotta get outta here. I can't… I can't breathe…"

"It's all right little buddy," Pheelan murmured, catching Stiles by the upper arm as he clutched at his chest and staggered towards the door, setting him right on his feet and steering him with one big hand on his shoulder. "Know just what you need."

And Stiles trusted that he did. Phee had been at his side long enough that he knew the symptoms, knew the signs that his friend had pushed it. He knew that afterwards his throat was raw, that he couldn't stand to be closed in or underneath a roof, that he was painfully, painfully drained, and so he trusted Phee to deal with that until he had his faculties back again. He was stumbling down the hallway towards the door, only half aware of his surroundings when a voice from the past cut through his fugue.

"Oh shit," he breathed.

It was Melissa McCall, exactly the same as he remembered her in her bright blue scrubs, if a little more harried, a little more grey, and he suddenly found himself both desperate for a hug and to disappear. It may have been five years, but he still remembered what it felt like to have someone care like a mom might. But if she knew he was back, so would Scott, and then everyone would know. Unfortunately for him, she was heading his way, and there weren't exactly a lot of places to hide. Phee must have sensed his distress, guessed the cause of it as his gaze flickered between them, and luckily he wasn't frozen in place like Stiles was. Grabbing the sides of Stiles' jacket, Pheelan wrenched him around and shoved him up against the wall, caging him between his thighs and crushing their mouths together with a click of teeth.

He stepped back when Melissa had disappeared into the Sheriff's room, and Stiles took the opportunity to suck in a massive gulp of air, his cheeks flushed.

"Thanks for that," he gasped.

"Any time," Phee winked. "Kissin' you's not exactly a chore."

Stiles smiled wearily, huffed a sad sort of chuckle. Hadn't always been the case, had it?

"Come on," Phee encouraged, pulling him upright again and steering him towards the exit. "Let's get you outta here."

**XXX**

An hour later found them sitting in the little diner that Stiles used to stop at once a week to pick up lunch for his dad. Sending him to sit in a booth in the back with his hood up over his face, Pheelan had ordered a carafe of double-brewed tea and had watched patiently as Stiles consumed cup after cup, the lemon and honey soothing on his raw throat. They didn't talk, but something must have been passing between them because no waitress ever encroached, leaving them to their little bubble of silence and calm. The sun was just beginning to set behind the trees, pouring hot colors through the wide glass windows and across the formica table when Stiles finally couldn't hold any more, fishing a five and a couple of ones out of his wallet and slipping them under his mug.

Pheelan followed him silently out of the diner, stood on the sidewalk and watched as Stiles closed his eyes and tipped his head to the side, listening as day-time sounds slowly faded and night-time things began to move. The car was only yards away, gassed and ready to go, and a motel on the edge of town had reservations in their name, but he didn't want to be inside, didn't want to feel trapped even though he still felt that way now, storm clouds swirling overhead and blocking out the stars. He felt his energy coming back to him, slowly began to feel like he might live to see another day, and oddly enough it had nothing to do with the massive amounts of caffeine he'd just consumed. He'd learned a long time ago how to control his ADD without meds, how to shift his foci and balance his chi, and so all he wanted now was to walk, to the ends of the earth and back if he could, but since he was stuck in Beacon Hills once more, there was only one place he wanted to go.

"Take a walk with me?" he murmured, and Pheelan didn't answer, just fell in easily at his side.

There was a low wooden fence surrounding this side of the preserve, rotting and broken down even before he'd left as it followed a long, winding ditch that ran the length of Main Street. The property was posted but that was a rule that Stiles had never followed, and he didn't intend to start now. Ducking behind the diner, he got a short running start and swung easily over the fence, using it as a pommel horse to vault up and over, landing neatly on the other side. Behind him, Phee took it at an angle, leaping up to grab a tree branch and swing himself over with a pretty mid-air somersault.

"Show off," Stiles smirked, and then he ran, just catching the flash of gold as Phee's eyes sparked in the growing darkness.

It was their own brand of hide-and-seek, dark and just a little dangerous, and for once Stiles felt like he had the advantage because he knew these woods. Whenever they'd gotten playful back in Ireland, he always 'lost' the game, was always the one getting tackled to the earth and covered with wet, sweet, sloppy kisses because Pheelan knew every dip and swoop and cliff and cave of the moors that he'd grown up hunting. Not tonight. Tonight Stiles held his own, ducking and swerving, scrambling through the patch of fallen birches he could trace like the back of his hand, all the while constantly aware of the wolf who careened alongside of him, always just out of sight, practically silent as he fought his way through the briars that Stiles knew better than to challenge.

The scent of the woods filled his nose, all mulch and bark and cold night air, snowflakes just barely coming down now, and Stiles' heart pounded in his chest as he ran. As much bitterness as ran through him with all the old memories of this place, it was still home, and he remembered this. He remembered the woods, remembered the paths and the little haunts and thickets, and despite everything, the life of this place swelled inside of him until a wide smile cracked his jaw, until laughter bubbled up out of him like champagne that couldn't fit in its bottle anymore. He'd come to a slow, halting stop and Phee stepped out of the dark hesitantly, not sure if the game was done, but the melancholy grin on Stiles' face answered him, and so they walked the rest of the way to the cemetery in a halfway-peaceful, halfway-somber silence.

He went to her headstone alone. Pheelan had dropped back respectfully at the edge of the graveyard, sensing that this was a private affair, better kept between the one gone and the one left. Stiles might have wept at the state of his mother's plot if he didn't know how hard it was for his father to come out here. The grass was too long, weeds growing up around the edges of the stone, dirt packed into the carved letters that spelled his mother's name. It was through tears that he unstrapped a small knife from his ankle, cut back the sod and carefully cleaned away the grit before tracing trembling fingers over the dates.

"Hey mom," he whispered, and as the snow came gently down around him he thought that maybe the wind might carry her his words.

"I missed you."


	4. Chapter 4

"We've got a serious problem!"

Derek looked up from the maps spread over the table in front of him and glared at Isaac and Violet with red eyes.

"Really?" he snapped, "I hadn't noticed!"

Violet flinched back from the Alpha thrum in his voice, her twin sister Lily moving to her side from her position against the wall.

Derek swallowed, reeled in his anger. The girls were still fairly new to the pack, only two years, and they still quavered when he barked just a little too loud. When Isaac's fiancée had requested the bite and her twin had followed suit he had consented, but at the time he'd hoped that the timid females would grow a little backbone. They had, mostly. Of the two Lily was braver, but they still shook in their boots when he snapped his teeth in their direction. Dropping his eyes back to the maps, flicking through them, he gave both betas a minute to collect themselves, to put on the masks they pulled when they wanted to put up a good front. They were both good at that. They could fake out any lesser wolf, but he knew better.

Around him he felt his pack shifting, felt Peter move from his side to Lily's, felt both males take the girls into their arms. They were all there, all gathered in the restored Hale House after the fiasco of last night; Scott and Allison, Erica and Boyd, Lydia too, all of them. Except maybe the one who mattered most in this moment.

Derek felt his mouth twist in a sneer.

He didn't have time to go there right now.

"Did you check on the Sheriff?" he growled in Isaac's direction, and he felt the lanky blonde shift on his feet.

"He's still alive."

Derek's relief was tempered by the fact that the man was turning.

He'd smelled it in the blood that had streaked his leather jacket as he'd rushed the man to the hospital the night before, his mind consumed with a crushing sense of failure.

"We need to find that alpha," he snarled quietly, mostly to himself, his eyes scanning the maps once again. "If we can bring him to John…"

"It might be more than just an alpha."

Derek's head snapped up and he quickly circled the table, stalking halfway across the floor towards Isaac, his second in command even above Scott and Peter. The once troubled teenager had grown into a strong, intelligent adult, and had developed a mind that could unravel a psyche quicker than any shrink Derek have ever met.

"What's wrong?" he asked, and something cold settled in the pit of his belly.

"We swung by the hospital, like you asked," Isaac said, and Violet nodded in agreement, her knuckles white where she gripped her fiancée's hand. "We caught Scott's mom on her way down to check on him. She said he'd been all right, but then he got worse. Said his pulse was elevated, he was having trouble breathing…"

"He's fighting the bite?" Derek asked, and the cold shot all the way down to his fingertips. If the Sheriff rejected the bite, he was going to die. He wasn't like Lydia, or Jackson, wasn't something else that could fight it off.

"I don't…"

Derek snapped out of his thoughts, raised an eyebrow at the sight of Isaac's nervousness and confusion.

"Derek there was another wolf there."

"What?" Derek hissed. "How many?"

"I don't, I don't know, maybe two? I could really only smell the one, but there was something else, something like…"

"Like a witch," Violet said.

Derek switched his attention to the quieter girl, waited, knowing he'd get it out of her faster if he didn't try to drag it out.

"It was," she began slowly, "It was like ashes. Like the smoke from candles. Or from…" She swallowed, looked up at her alpha with blatant fear in her wide blue eyes. "From a fire."

Derek felt his mouth fall open, had to suck in a breath that he'd forgotten to take while he waited for the world to stop shifting underneath him.

"Could you tell who it was?" he finally choked out, turning his back on the pack and moving back to the table, leaning over it as he tried not to panic.

"No," Isaac replied. "I don't… I don't know."

"Well which is it?!" Derek snarled viciously, turning on him with flashing eyes and teeth gone long and sharp.

"I don't know!" Isaac bit back. "It wasn't the alpha that bit John. Definitely at least one wolf, but… I don't know, _something_. There was something there that was like… like I knew it. Like I'd smelled it before but can't remember…"

"Someone from the alpha pack?" Scott suggested, all innocence and helpfulness. He'd never lost that, even after it all, that simple, puppyish quality that had never quite endeared itself to Derek as much as it had to everyone else.

"None of them would risk being in my territory without my permission," he replied off-handedly. "Not after the way that mess ended."

"What would they want with the Sheriff?" Allison asked, and Scott grabbed her hand in his as if to reassure her that it wasn't anything bad.

Derek shook his head. Of course it was. This was Beacon Hills. As soon as you thought everything was under control, some dark thing raised its head again.

"Allison! Lydia!" he commanded, and both girls leapt to their feet, stances strong and ready. "Get to the hospital. Guard that room. Anyone shows up you call us. Erica, Boyd?" Turning back to the maps, he circled off pieces of the town with one hand as his pack crowded around him. "Take the western quarter. Isaac, Scott, the north. Peter, you're with me." A token protest went up but he silenced it with a wave of his hand. "I want the twins going south," he explained, taking the time to soothe ruffled feathers on the protective males that had grumbled his way. "Violet and Lily can search the preserve. I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to get this close, so they'll be fine. But check!" he warned them firmly.

"You're looking for any wolf that isn't pack," he reminded them. "Any _wolves_. Anybody finds anything, they call the rest of us. And if it's the alpha, don't engage."

Derek glared at each of them, his face grim.

"Don't forget, we want him alive."

**XXX**

"So this is the famous Beacon Hills Preserve," Pheelan murmured as he and Stiles walked back up through the woods, back towards the car as the snow started really coming down. "The place it all started."

A smile quirked at one side of Stiles' mouth, and he shrugged deeper into his sweatshirt, pulling his hood up tight around his ears. "About a mile south of it, but close enough."

"Seems like a good place to run," he said carefully.

"Sure," Stiles agreed casually. "When there aren't pissed-off alphas and kanimas and psychotic teens leaving bodies all over the trails."

Phee chuckled under his breath, moved closer to Stiles' side as they both hopped easily over a rotting log. They were weaving their way slowly between the trees, Stiles' eyes just good enough in the dark that he could move without tripping over his feet. When he'd finally accepted that he wasn't just an ordinary human, accepted that he was a counterpart to a werewolf pack, his senses had heightened, sharpened. They weren't anywhere near a wolf's, but they were far better than they had been, his sense of smell in particular better than he'd ever imagined it might be. He knew it was the Hale pack that he was scenting, striping paths through the woods even though he couldn't tell who was who. He did, however, have a nasty suspicion that the strongest scent, the one that was like coffee and peppermint and clean, pale sawdust, the one that seemed to burrow its way into his chest and get stuck there, belonged to the pack's alpha.

He could've asked Phee.

The werewolf would have answered.

But it would have felt cruel somehow, and so Stiles just tried to ignore it, focusing instead on the snowflakes that were drifting down around them, fat and wet and white. They weren't sticking, and tomorrow there'd be no sign that they ever were, but while they lasted they were pretty enough. They were getting closer and closer to the Hale House as they walked back to the main road, and the closer they got the more tense Stiles became. He wasn't even sure if the house was still standing, let alone if the wolves were actually staying there, but he didn't see any reason to take the chance and so he tried to steer them on a parallel course. If Phee sensed the others, sensed Stiles' discomfort he didn't mention it, just followed along at his heels, trusting him to take the best path out of the woods.

Five minutes in from the road, Stiles stopped in his tracks.

"Ok, I can't hold it anymore," he groaned, stepping towards the base of a heavy oak. "I gotta take a leak."

"You really think it's a good idea to start marking in their territory?" Phee asked flatly.

"This isn't about scent marking," Stiles insisted, "It's about the eight cups of tea I…"

Stiles' hands froze on his belt buckle, his head snapping to the left, eyes searching in the dark.

"Incoming. Nine o'clock," Phee murmured, slipping in close behind him, two steps back and to the left as Stiles turned in the direction he'd nodded.

"Wolves?"

"Two. Betas, females both." Pheelan lifted his head, scented the air, and Stiles did the same, but he couldn't pick up anything over the smell of the snow and the cold, dead trails already crisscrossing through the trees. "Twins?"

"Great," Stiles muttered. "Think they can do that fucked-up body-blend thing?"

He didn't look back to see if Phee responded. He didn't really need an answer. He could handle whatever came at them, he knew that, except that in some ways he couldn't handle any of it at all. It hurt somehow to know that the pack had grown in his absence, taken in new members when he hadn't been allowed that privilege…

A short way off a twig snapped, and two thin, fragile-looking girls with dark, mahogany-colored hair stepped out of the trees, their eyes glowing gold in the dark.

"This is private property," one of them snarled, showing her fangs. "You're trespassing."

Stiles smirked coldly, remembering a similar conversation years ago with a werewolf much scarier than these two.

"Last I knew," he drawled easily, "Private property didn't start for another two hundred yards."

This time both girls snarled, crouching forward in fighting stances. Behind him Phee rocked back on his heels, the picture of insolent relaxation, and Stiles hoped that wearing the wolf's sweatshirt might mask his scent enough to cover up the fact that he was human. At least these particular wolves wouldn't recognize him, he had that going.

"Claimed territory then," the first wolf hissed. "Alpha Hale is not pleased."

Stiles snorted, making them flash their eyes and show their teeth. "_Alpha Hale_," he snickered. Hilarious. Even if hearing his name again cut. "Still a pretentious son of a bitch then?"

"Hah!" Behind him, Phee barked a short laugh, grinned lopsidedly and pointed at Stiles with thumb and forefinger. "Son of a bitch."

Stiles smirked over his shoulder.

He'd thought it was pretty funny too.

The girls didn't. They whipped their heads back and forth, roared with bared teeth, danced anxiously on their feet, but they were eyeing Pheelan nervously and Stiles was fairly confident that the Omega's massive size would at least have them thinking twice before they attacked.

"Not looking for a fight," he warned flatly, but his tone held ice and flint. Looking for a fight, no. Ready for a fight? Always.

Hell, if it had been one of the others, he might've enjoyed it.

Not these two.

"Then what _are_ you looking for?" the second wolf growled, speaking up for the first time. "A Sheriff perhaps?"

At the mention of his father Stiles felt his hands go cold, felt his tattoos burn and he knew that something dark glinted in his eyes. A chill wind picked up out of nothing and began to whistle through the trees around them, the earth rolling and quivering under their feet, and both girls yipped as they were thrown violently to the ground. Hunching low, they scrabbled backwards and away from Stiles, cowering from what they didn't know.

"You and your _pack_ stay away from the Sheriff," he warned, his voice low and deadly, dark with a poisonous edge that threatened to strike. "He's not your concern anymore."

Slowly, the rumbling and shaking of the rock and soil under their feet settled and Stiles felt the energy that had grabbed hold of him let go, and it was all he could do to keep from slumping into a puddle. The two were-girls scrambled to their feet, clutching at each other and darting terrified glances into the darkness around then, their bodies shaking as they stared at Stiles with something akin to horror.

"Run along home now, little flowers," he sneered, for the shadows had whispered names in his ears.

They didn't need a second invitation.

Casting frightened glances back over their shoulders, they took off at a dead run towards the Hale House as though demons from hell were nipping at their heels.

"Oh and tell your Alpha," Stiles called after them, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Tell your alpha not to be such a fucking _sourwolf_!"


	5. Chapter 5

Derek and Peter exploded back into the Hale House with eyes flashing, hearts pounding in their chests. They had made it back from the far northern edge of the county in record time, a quavering, unintelligible phone call booting them both in the ass and sending them careening recklessly back through the woods towards home. Derek had immediately sent up a biting, vicious howl, calling the entire pack in and they were all assembled, bunched together in an anxious, nervous knot in the center of the wide, open living room, waiting.

"What happened?!" Derek asked, skidding across the floor to the twins and putting a hand gently to each of their cheeks. "You both ok?"

The girls managed a nod but shivered under his touch, and he was quick to hand Lily off to Peter, Violet back to Isaac, where they could be comforted by the scent and embrace of their mates. Peter began to murmur nonsense words, glaring at him over the top of Lily's head, the scent of her panic hanging heavy in the air alongside her sister's, who had collapsed against Isaac in a sweaty mess and was weeping into his chest.

Derek cursed under his breath.

He'd sent them together because he thought they'd both be safe in the preserve. Thought they'd just run out, do a quick check, and run back. They might not be his favorite betas, it might creep him out that Lily had fallen for his much older, rather sketchy uncle, and that Violet was a timid, wilting flower who could suddenly turn into a raving ball of crazy that only Isaac could tame, but they were still his. They were still pack.

He should have kept them safe.

Erica appeared at his side and cocked an eyebrow, a bottle of homemade apple brandy in her hands. It was cooked up carefully with just enough extract of wolfsbane to give it a werewolf-sized alcoholic punch, and Derek nodded, grateful that she'd thought of it. Popping the cork with a deft twist, she poured out a healthy slug into each of two glasses and handed them wordlessly to the twins, who looked to him for a nod of approval before knocking back the contents like pros. He waited to hear their heartbeats slow just a bit from their breakneck pace, waited to sense them still.

"The Sheriff?" he asked quietly, stepping in close to Scott's side.

"Allison and Lydia are still there," he answered, bouncing on the souls of his feet. "All's clear on the western front."

Derek nodded, his relief palpable to every wolf in the room, before he turned back to the twins.

"Are you both ok?" he asked again. "You're not hurt?"

"Just scared," Lily answered shakily from the protective circle of Peter's arms, her voice hoarse. Violet just shuddered, burrowed deeper into Isaac's sweater.

"Can you tell me what happened."

It wasn't a question. He had to know, even if he had to _alpha _them into telling him. Lily nodded, moved to sit nervously on the very edge of the couch, her knees tight beneath her as though she wanted to be ready to spring at any moment. Derek moved to kneel on the floor in front of her, sure that he'd get more if he focused on this sister instead of the one falling apart in his second's arms.

"We were checking the preserve like you wanted," she whispered, and Derek got the sudden, sinking feeling that this was going to take longer than they had the time for. Darting a look at his uncle, he watched as Peter nodded and moved to sit at Lily's side, one hand on her shoulder, an encouragement to keep going.

"It was fine. Everything was fine. We'd gone all the way down to the end of the property and there was nothing. We were coming back, and it was starting to snow, and we…"

"Take your time," Peter murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple when she trailed off, and Derek flashed red eyes in his direction, but Peter of course chose to ignore him.

"We were coming back to the house," Lily said after a hard swallow, and Derek could smell the brandy on her breath and see the fear in the backs of her eyes. "We caught something. Smelled like a wolf so we tracked it. There were two of them. A wolf, an omega, huge. God, Derek he was…"

"Easy," Derek murmured, putting a hand on Lily's knee, paying Peter back by ignoring the protective blue glow of his irises. "What about the other one?"

Fear and adrenaline spiked in Lily's blood and all the wolves in the room flinched at the painful terror the girl and her sister were experiencing.

"I don't know," she choked finally. "Derek, I don't, I don't…"

"Lily!" Derek barked, grabbing on to her upper arms and giving her a little shake. "Easy. You're safe ok? You're safe right here with us. Peter's right here, I'm right here…"

Slowly, slowly the girl could breathe again, and a glance in Isaac's direction showed Violet's knuckles clenched white around her fiancée's forearms, her face hidden as her shoulders shook. Derek ground his teeth, bit back a growl.

"Easy now," he murmured as gently as he could. "Who was with the wolf?"

"I don't know what it was."

_What_.

"He just smelled like the other, like the omega, and like…"

"Like ash."

Derek's head snapped in Violet's direction, found her staring at him with huge, blue, babydoll eyes.

Rising easily to his feet, he stepped to her side and smoothed a soothing hand down her spine. "Ash," he murmured, "Like the witch?"

"It was them," she mumbled, "The same ones from the hospital. The wolf and the… the…"

Derek sighed, ran a hand roughly over his face. "Not a witch then" he grumbled, moving to pour his own glass of brandy from the bottle Erica had placed on the bookshelf.

"Something. He's… I don't…"

"He makes you want him," Lily said in a flat, emotionless voice, and beside her Peter growled, his teeth showing just a little bit sharp. "He does something… pulls at you. At your wolf. Derek… he made the ground shake."

Derek cocked an eyebrow over the rim of his glass, tossed back the brandy and moved to pour another shot.

"The wind picked up, things… _screamed_. It was like… _shadows_, _screaming_. He made the ground shake. And he knew our names."

"Did he _say _anything?" Derek asked, swirling his brandy in an effort to focus, an effort not to shift. He could feel claws pricking at his fingers, fangs pricking at his gums, and his hackles were definitely up. Suddenly both the twins froze, rabbits in his sights. Lily's gaze flicked to her sister and Violet shook her head almost imperceptibly, darting glances at Derek with something like fear and Lily swallowed.

"He said to tell you," she said carefully, "He said to tell you not to be such a…" She whined in distress, turning her head to show her throat and gluing her eyes on the floor.

"Such a what?!" Derek barked.

Lily yelped and threw her arms up over her head. "He said to tell you not to be such a fucking sourwolf!"

Derek's glass slipped from dead fingers and shattered on the floor.

**XXX**

"Well little buddy," Pheelan murmured as he pulled the SUV into the lot of their hotel, "You've blown your cover good this time. Hope you weren't counting on that anonymity to last."

Stiles hummed in response but didn't open his eyes, physically and emotionally drained from the day's stress, the day's work. After he'd chased off the little betas he'd almost immediately regretted his parting words; if _Alpha Hale _didn't recognize them, Scott definitely would. And they would know. He'd expected them to find out, sooner than this if he was honest, but he wasn't looking forward to the inevitable confrontation. Still, as far as an unveiling went, that was a pretty big finger to the reigning pack leader.

Stiles just wished he could see Derek's face when he got the message.

Man, that'd be awesome.

Unfortunately he'd been a little too wrecked to fully appreciate how great that parting shot truly was.

He'd linked elbows with Phee for the rest of the walk, letting the big wolf take most of his weight as they slowly made their way out of the preserve, onto the road and back to the diner. Once he'd gotten himself loaded into the car he'd slouched low in the seat, closed his eyes, tried to drift off to the rhythmic swish of the wipers over the windshield but couldn't quite do it. Now he could hear doors opening and closing as Phee grabbed their duffels out of the back, grabbed Stiles leather case, and then there were big, gentle hands pulling him out of the car and guiding him up a set of stairs, unlocking a door and pushing him inside. He didn't know how Phee had gotten the key so fast, didn't care, and then those same hands were helping him out of his jacket and Stiles heard the sound of a gun being unloaded, placed into a desk drawer. Staggering across the room to the king-sized bed, he keeled over backwards and dropped onto the mattress with a huff, his feet dangling over the edge.

Phee chuckled, pulled at Stiles' laces and removed his boots, trailed fingers up his thighs to his belt buckle and then dragged his jeans back down his legs, unstrapping the knife from his ankle. A smile tipped at Stiles' mouth when he felt the wolf slip up onto the bed, straddle his hips and brace himself over his body with a hand on either side of his shoulders. Soft lips pressed delicate kisses over his cheekbones and along the cut of his jawline, snuffled beneath the hood of his sweatshirt at the juncture of his throat and his shoulder, nipping at pale skin. Stiles whined low in his throat, wriggled, sat up and struggled out of his hoodie, his wrinkled grey tee as a bolt of heat shot through him. Pheelan had rocked back on his heels, shucked his coat and his tank top, moved to pull the silver pentagram over his head but Stiles caught his hand, pressing it flat over his heart and pinning the charm to his chest.

"Leave it," Stiles whispered hoarsely, and then pulled the wolf in for a hard, hot kiss.

It was easy in the dark, to forget. Wandering hands and hungry mouths gripped and stroked, teased, heated panting damp on exposed throats. Phee pressed him back onto the quilt, his teeth scraping over the pounding pulse in Stiles neck, but as he began to trail lower, pressing suckling bites down over his collar bones and his chest, something like guilt settled over him.

"Wait," he whispered with tears burning at the corners of his eyes, pushing up on Phee's shoulders. "Wait."

Phee immediately pulled away, rolling off of Stiles to land heavily on his back at his side. For a minute they just lay there, chests heaving in the blackness, and then his fingers were stroking Stiles' wrist, brushing over the back of his knuckles.

"Don't wanna hurt you," he murmured into the stillness. "Don't want you to think you have to, just so that I…"

He was cut off when Phee rolled onto his side, turned to face him and dropped a hand lightly over Stiles' throat, his thumb stroking the smooth, soft skin beneath his jaw.

"You know me better than that," he rumbled gently, easily. "Not a lot I do that I don't want to. You included. Rolling you up in me, putting my scent on every inch of your skin…" Stiles' breath caught as Pheelan twisted their fingers together, lifted his hand and ran his nose up the sensitive inside of his wrist, pressed a kiss to his palm. "Just a bonus. Now _roll over_."

Stiles cocked an eyebrow at the abrupt command, loud and authoritative where they'd spoken in hushed and level tones, but did as the wolf asked, turning onto his stomach and pulling a pillow down into his arms. He yipped when Phee smacked his ass smartly, laughed, then sank into the mattress as the big blonde straddled his hips and began to knead the muscles in his neck, put his weight behind long, smooth strokes from nape to tailbone. He melted as wide palms pulled the knots from his shoulders, moaned almost obscenely as talented fingers worked over his ticklish ribs and dipped beneath the elastic of his boxers, snapping it playfully.

Phee was diligent in his task, careful, and it didn't take long for Stiles' healing glow to start shining through, a gentle, ambient light that cast the room into soft, sweet shadow. He watched as the boy's bruised eyes flickered, eyelashes dark on pale cheeks as sleep dragged at him, the toll of coming back to Beacon Hills taken out on his body and his mind. Pressing a chaste kiss to the perfect black circles marking Stiles' spine, the big blonde wolf grabbed a pillow of his own and dragged the exhausted Touchstone in to his chest, looping one arm around his waist and letting the warmth of the light suffuse his body.

"Wish I could love you," Stiles mumbled as he finally drifted off.

Phee just hooked his chin over Stiles' shoulder and breathed.

"I know."


	6. Chapter 6

"Steeaaakkkk."

"What?" Stiles asked, his voice muffled beneath a starchy hotel towel as he dried his hair.

"Steeaaakkkk."

"What?" Stiles asked, his voice muffled beneath a starchy hotel towel as he dried his hair. He'd just emerged from the shower in a cloud of hot steam and Irish Spring, and Phee lay sprawled out on his back in a giant, crooked starfish across the bed, the sheets twisted around his waist and the coverlet on the floor. The wolf was a messy sleeper and it was only made worse by this new place, the strange scents that invaded his dreams.

Stiles tossed his towel back into the bathroom and crossed to the bed, carding his fingers into the curly, tousled chaos of Phee's hair as he bent over to grab his duffle bag, sifting through for clean underwear and a toothbrush.

"Steak," the wolf repeated firmly, his eyes still closed and a dreamy look on his face. "Steak and eggs and that God awful American coffee, and then we'll go see your dad."

"You want steak and eggs you need to get your ass outta bed," Stiles smirked, dropping to the floor to buckle on his knife and lace up his boots. "It's almost noon." Slipping into a maroon-colored t-shirt, he pushed at Pheelan's shoulder until he rolled, freeing Stiles' black hoody from the mattress. Giving it a shake, he lifted it to his nose and breathed in deep, smelling the wind and rain and moors of home, the yeast and balsa and lake water that was Phee.

"We slept till noon?" Phee yawned, pushing upright and rubbing a hand over his face.

"_You _slept till noon," Stiles chided. "I was up at ten."

"Still, good night for you."

"Yeah. Didn't expect that."

"Maybe it's being home?"

Stiles' shot him a glare. "Ireland's home," he countered. "The cliffs and the taverns and the hills. Móraí. You."

"Home is with the people you love Stiles," Pheelan declared softly, climbing to his feet and stepping towards the bathroom, turning in the doorway to smile at him sadly. "And you don't love me."

The door clicked shut silently behind him and Stiles wondered when everything had changed, when not being in love had started to hurt them both. Because it did hurt. He could feel it in his chest and he could see it in Phee's eyes.

Shaking his head, he grabbed his leather jacket from the hook near the door, checked his pockets for his lighter and his wallet and his flask, the little bag of ash. Taking his Ruger from the desk drawer, he checked his sights and carefully reloaded, made sure the safety was set and holstered the pistol. He was just keeping himself busy, he knew it, but it was better than the other.

Because this wasn't them.

This strange, aching hurt that neither had signed up for.

No.

They were just Stiles and Phee, happy but not in love, and fine with that.

From inside the shower Pheelan startled to warble the lyrics to 'Galway Girl' and Stiles grimaced, then smiled. The wolf couldn't sing for shit, at least not when he was sober, but it was a happy tune, and that was enough.

"Sounds like you're strangling a cat in here," he joked as he pushed into the tiny bathroom, started scrubbing his teeth.

Phee laughed, cut the water with a shriek of metal and stepped out, looping a towel around his waist. "That _does _sound like something I would do," he chuckled, shaking his head like the wolf he was and sending water flying everywhere.

"A werewolf, maybe," Stiles garbled around his toothbrush. "Not you." A quick rinse and spit and he turned to give the wolf a short, quick, peck of a kiss. "I know your _secret_, Pheelan O'Rourke. You're just a big ole softy."

Ducking out of the room, he just managed to avoid the snap of a wet towel aimed for his ass.

"Hurry up!" he whined over his shoulder. "I'm starving!"

While Phee dressed and used gel to tame his mass of curls, Stiles double-checked the supplies he would need to finish up on his dad, made sure everything was still secure in his bag. Amidst the candles and the jars, the pens and the little book he liked to keep on hand for notes, there was a small wooden box, a box that held a second ward like the one he'd given Pheelan, and as his hand closed around it he hoped that he could convince his father as easily as he had convinces the werewolf. Of course, Stiles' wouldn't exactly be giving him a choice. He'd burn a ward into the man's skin if he had to, temporary pain far superior to death or serious maiming. Standing up, he latched the bag, slipped the strap over his head, and grabbed the keys. Phee had just grabbed his jacket from the floor, checked for his wallet, and so together they locked up and walked back down to the car.

Stiles drove this time. Across town to the same little diner where they snagged the same booth, ordered platters of steak and pancakes and hashbrowns, scrambled eggs and OJ. Settling in to wait, they grimaced back and forth over cups of bitter black coffee, unaccustomed to the brew despite the strength of the tea they were both used to. Phee made a few faces at him from behind his mug but Stiles was mostly lost in thought, quiet and a little withdrawn until the waitress reappeared with fragrant, steaming platefuls of breakfast. Commandeering the entire stack of pancakes, Stiles stole half of the potatoes, fried crisp with onions and peppers, doused the entire thing in syrup and dug in.

Leave the meat to the carnivores. He'd take his breakfast sweet and sticky.

"That's disgusting," Phee commented when they were halfway in, shuddering as Stiles dumped ketchup over half of the scrambled eggs.

"This coming from a guy who likes the full English breakfast?" Stiles countered, one eyebrow shooting skyward. "Black pudding and cold beans and _boiled_ bacon?"

"Touché," the wolf conceded, sneaking his fork over to grab a bite of Stiles' pancakes.

"Hey, hey _hey_!" he scolded with mock sternness. "_Mine_! Eat your steak!"

It was far more than two men should have been capable of eating, but they weren't two men. They were a werewolf and a… well a _Stiles_, who could pack it away just as efficiently, and pack it away they did. Phee actually had another dish of eggs brought to the table when Stiles' ketchup encroached to far over the halfway mark, the Irish in him horrified at the thought of going anywhere near the gloppy red condiment. It was nice, almost happily domestic to Stiles mind as he sipped at his coffee and watched a massive slab of rare meat get demolished with a vigor he hugely appreciated. And he supposed that after last night, and this morning, that Phee deserved that.

When they both finally slowed down, bellies stretched and hunger sated, Pheelan signaled for the check, waved off Stiles' offer to pay.

"You know they're going to be waiting for you right?" he asked, signing his name to the receipt and leaving a hefty tip. "At the hospital?"

"Yeah," Stiles replied, scooping up his last bite of syrup-soaked pancake. "I've thought about that."

"Well?"

Darting a glance out the window to the east, a slow grin curled over his mouth, one that the devil himself would have been proud of.

"I've got an idea."

**XXX**

Derek sat with his elbows on his knees in the chair next to John's bed, staring down at his hands as if the answers to all the questions running through his head were written in the lines of his palms. Across the room Scott shifted restlessly in his own seat, the fourth time in as many minutes, and he had to bite his tongue so that he didn't snap at the young beta, his nerves raw. The steady, beat of the Sheriff's heart, the gently, easy breathing should have been soothing but it was like the tap of a snare drum on sensitive skin. The shouting banged around inside his head, the phantom voice of memory making his throat tight.

_"He said to tell you not to be such a fucking sourwolf!"_

_"What?!"_

_"Derek?"_

_"Derek!"_

_"No. No that's not…"_

_"You're sure? You're sure that's what he said?!"_

_"What the hell's a sourwolf?"_

_"Derek…"_

_"There's no way…"_

_"Derek?_

_"Derek."_

_"DEREK!"_

The alpha shook his head, batted the memories away, but they slipped back again.

_It was like a sucker punch, those words, that familiar phrase, and all the air was gone from his lungs and for a minute he'd thought he was drowning. But then he clawed back to control, reigned in his wolf, and turned to Scott with something almost like fear, afraid to have the truth confirmed, even more to have it denied, but the beta's eyes were shining and a huge, stupid grin cracked over his face like the sun rising._

_"He's back," he said in an awed whisper, a painful, killing joy bubbling in his throat._

_"No," Derek choked in denial. "No, he's not. It's been five years, he wouldn't…"_

_"Wait a minute," Isaac said slowly, and from the look on Erica's face, she realized it too. "It's not…"_

_"Derek?"_

_"Derek…"_

_"Scott?"_

_"Stiles!"_

Derek shook himself out of it hard, breathed deep, tried to find the scent of him in the little hospital room but couldn't pull it out. All he could sense was the maddening scent of the other wolf, and the strange, mixed ash and berry coming off the sleeping Sheriff's skin, snarled and confused and not as it had been the night before, dark and pulsing like an organ, wet, alive...

Something was different.

Sitting up, he dragged a hand over his face, felt the extra day's stubble on his jaw.

At the mention of Stiles' name the pack had practically imploded, everyone but Boyd and the twins bouncing off the walls, shrieking, smiling, the sweet sugary scent of pure happiness hanging in the air. Even Peter's eyes had glowed, though his grin had been rather wolfish, the points of his canines showing under his lip. Scott had called Lydia and Allison and in the ten minutes it took them to get back to the Hale House and add their voices to the cacophony, Derek had drifted dumbly over to an armchair, dropped down and stared out the window at the falling snow. As his pack yipped and caroused happily around him he felt lost, adrift. It wasn't until Lydia had asked where Stiles _was_, wasn't until Erica proposed going out into the preserve and tracking him down, that he'd found his voice.

To say they'd been immediately pissed when he'd put his foot down was an understatement, but it hadn't taken long to convince them. Everything he'd said was true; Stiles had been gone without a word for almost five full years, he'd slipped into town just as silently, he'd scared the ever living hell out of the twins and warned all the pack away from his father.

If he'd wanted to see them, he knew where to find them.

That wasn't exactly the message he was sending.

The pack had sobered quickly, a melancholy falling over them as they recalled the years past, the events that led to the loss of their friend. They blamed him, he knew that, even if they didn't say it out loud.

He accepted it.

He blamed himself too.

Which was why now he felt ready to split out of his skin, to go mad from all the gentle, swishing sounds of life continuing to move around him when his own little world had stopped.

He would've stayed away.

He didn't doubt that was what Stiles wanted.

But Lydia had quashed that, taken charge and proposed tearily that in an effort not to drive Stiles away again they approach cautiously. She'd named him and Scott as the two to do the ice-breaking and he'd immediately declined, calling her as the smarter bet. She and Stiles had become quite close in the end, so much so that she'd been more crushed by his leaving than she had been by Jackson's. He could hear the heartache, smell the yearning when she'd said no, gone for his weak spot by pointing out that he was the alpha of the territory and the pack, that it was his responsibility by rite, and that it had been for _him _that Stiles sent his identifying message, a damn code word that none of the rest even knew.

He'd agreed then because he couldn't refuse, not without drawing attention to… well, whatever was cutting at him. But he agreed too because she was right. The red-headed banshee could be vicious, ruthless… but she was right.

She would have made a good wolf.

So that was how he'd won the lottery, wound up sitting in a hospital watching a man sleep with an excited, nervous beta across from him, waiting for _Stiles_, waiting for the axe to drop. They'd waited till visiting hours, waited till the sun had well and fully risen, and it was almost one now. At least, according to the clock over by the door. He didn't trust it. Seemed he'd been sitting here forever with his mind spinning itself into a frenzy.

Still, he had to give it to Scott, he was keeping his mouth shut. There was no way he was missing the thunder of Derek's heart, the sharp, citrus scent of his nerves. But he kept his mouth shut. Except for when his mom had come along and he'd practically interrogated her before telling her that Stiles had come back. The nurse had been as sweetly happy as Lydia, tears glinting as she'd hugged her son and promised to keep an eye out but denied seeing him or anyone else coming or going from the Sheriff's room. He'd been in a sort of sedated sleep ever since they'd come in, since his minor distress code the evening before. She'd assured them though that he was doing better, and that he would be back to his old self in just a few days.

Neither Derek nor Scott had had the heart to contradict her, had the heart to tell her that it had been an alpha who'd caused the bite.

She'd left for the nurse's station with a new spring in her step, touching her hand to Derek's chest with a strange, soft smile on her face before leaving them both alone with the stillness and the steady snare of heartbeats and that god damned smell of wheat and rain and wet _werewolf_.

Derek pushed roughly to his feet with a snarl, ignoring Scott's jump and wide-eyed look and beginning to pace sharply and rapidly back and forth over the tiled floor. His own wolf was battering around beneath his skin, throwing itself against the bars he used to cage it, desperate to run, to scent and track and _hunt down_…

Derek's head snapped towards the door, his eyes flashing red.

"Shut up," he growled and Scott yipped.

"I didn't say anyth…"

"Shut up!" Derek tipped his head to the side, angling towards the door as his ears pricked. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Listen!" Derek snarled.

"Wait a minute…" Scott murmured, cocking his head too. "Is that…"

Derek's eyes flared and he felt his teeth sharpen. "Is that Stiles' jeep?"


	7. Chapter 7

Stiles' listened with a smirk from the edge of the parking lot, crouched low with his back pressed flat against the tire of their rented black SUV. He'd recognize that heavy shift and grind of gears, that dull roar of an engine with a steady drip anywhere.

God he'd missed his jeep.

He hadn't been able to go inside the house. He'd wanted to. Really wanted to. Standing in his driveway, gazing at the house where he'd grown up, where his mother had lived and where his dad had raised him filled him with a sweet sense of melancholy and nostalgia. But it wouldn't have felt right, not without his dad there. Not to walk through those empty rooms, like a still-frame out of a movie, to see life that had gone on without him and then had stopped when his father had been jerked out of it by a werewolf allowed to run and rampage…

He was lucky Phee had been with him then, because the shadows had started to wrack and swirl up through the soles of his boots and send his vision off in a spin of black and gray, and even though the wolf didn't know how bad the shadows were, didn't know that they were starting to cut and bite and hammer away at his glow, he could smell his distress. He knew enough, recognized the shaking in Stiles' hands and had grabbed on hard to his wrist, the bones shifting under his fingers until Stiles had blinked stupidly and come back to himself, the ringing in his ears fading away. He'd never told anyone about the shadows. He'd always just though it was something he had to deal with, a consequence just like his inability to sleep that resulted from the elements and forces he chose to tamper with. Never told Phee, never told his grandmother who had taught Stiles most of what he knew. It was his burden to bear, and the fact that he could feel it growing, feel it in his chest just underneath his breastbone, a constant presence ever since he'd stepped back into Beacon Hills, well it was just that. A presence. A consequence he dealt with.

So he hadn't gone inside, afraid to face the metaphorical hearth of the home that he had left, afraid to bring the shadows inside with him.

The garage was another story.

He'd gotten in easily enough with the lock picks from his pocket, and he'd almost cried at the condition his jeep was in. He'd told his father that he could sell it, as much as it would hurt, but when he'd left he hadn't thought he'd ever be coming back. Still, there it was, parked in the corner instead of outside or in storage, and it looked even better than he remembered it. His dad didn't know a lot about cars, mostly just took the cruiser in for a tune-up at the little garage on the edge of town when it needed an oil change, but it was clear that he had spent time, care on the old blue rust-bucket. It had been washed, waxed, the floors and seats vacuumed out… there was even one of those little trees hanging from the rearview mirror, cracked and dried out. It was odd and unsuspected and sweetly touching.

The keys were stashed in the ashtray Stiles had always kept full of change, and his baby started up for Phee like a dream, turning over without a hiccup, a testament to the general maintenance it had gotten over the years. Stiles consoled himself with the promise of a nice long drive later on, trying not to think about when later on would be, how long he'd stay in Beacon Hills before going back to Ireland, how he would break it to his dad that he was going. Instead he pulled Phee through the driver's window, kissed him hard and told him to wait ten minutes, then ran for the SUV and burned rubber for the hospital. His trap set, all that there had been left to do was wait.

Stiles shifted on his heels, adjusted his crouch as the low rumble of his jeep got closer and closer, trawled slowly in front of the hospital parking lot. In his mind's eye he could see Pheelan sitting low and easy in the driver's seat, hands strong and confident on the wheel and the gear shaft, and he had to blink and shake his head before he could refocus on the doors of the hospital. He wasn't sure who'd be waiting to ambush him, might even be the entire pack, and if that was the case he was screwed, but he didn't think Melissa or the hospital would let that fly. One or two then, and he was… hesitant to guess who it would be.

He didn't have to wait long to find out.

With the jeep idling loudly on the street, the doors of the hospital came crashing open and Derek Hale came skidding out, Scott McCall behind him.

Stiles hissed in a breath between his teeth as the knife in his side twisted sharply. It had been driven in hard and deep some time ago, but it had been lodged between his ribs so long that he'd pretty much forgotten it was there, forgotten it could make him bleed.

The sight of his once upon a times reminded him.

His once upon a time best friend.

His once upon a time… well. Whatever the hell. He didn't label what Derek was to him. No word was right, no word fit, and in reality, he was nothing. Nothing to him.

Because Stiles was nothing to Derek.

Still, seeing them again, finally… he couldn't even describe it. It was just like with Melissa, his desires tearing him in half as easily as any werewolf could've. At least back then.

Stiles sneered.

Wouldn't be so easy now.

_Hug him_.

_Hurt him_.

Stiles wasn't sure which wolf he met. Which option he preferred.

Probably all of the above, and then some.

Luckily he wasn't about to find out, because as Derek's head whipped back and forth, searching for the sound that had brought both of them running, Pheelan nailed the gas and peeled out, painting long black lines onto the asphalt with an admirably vicious screech. Stiles had all of three seconds to admire the burnout, run his tongue over the points of his canines in a display of arousal that he'd picked up living with the wolf before he had to duck, chuckling as Derek flew by in a streak of black and grey, Scott close on his heels.

"So long chumps," he muttered darkly, rolling to his feet and bolting across the lot to the doors. Pulling up his hood and popping the collar of his jacket, he moved quickly down the hallway and slipped into his father's room.

The Sheriff was still sleeping, an unnatural sleep, almost a coma as his body fought what had been done to him. Stiles knew, just from looking, listening, that he hadn't gotten the job done yesterday but it didn't scare him. It had never taken him just one try, never been that easy, and so he was prepared to finish what he'd started. He didn't have a lot of time; the jeep was faster than the wolves but he'd told Pheelan just to run them around the edge of town and come back – he would need him when he was done.

Moving to the side of the bed, Stiles slipped his hand beneath his father's pillow and pulled out the sprig of mistletoe he'd left there, found it black and shriveled, crushed easily to ash under his fingers and brushed away. Opening up his hard-sided satchel, he took out his chalk, his mountain ash and began to draw his circle.

**XXX**

Phee didn't think it would work.

Why would a werewolf, especially an alpha, chase after Stiles' jeep? It was a little too much like a dog chasing a car for dignity, so why wouldn't they just wait, find him at the hospital or his house or his motel? Why would they chase someone who clearly didn't want to be caught?

Well, ok, that last one he got.

The chase, the hunt, running your prey to ground.

Yeah.

That he got.

Of all the games he and Stiles played, that one was definitely his favorite.

Him? He'd chase.

But then again, that was him. They weren't in love, but he'd chase Stiles to the ends of the earth, cherish him while he had him. These wolves, they hadn't done that. This _alpha_ hadn't done that. And still, they seemed almost desperate, hauling ass after the beat-up blue box of bolts that Stiles had looked at with something close to familial love and that Phee had been nervous to climb into in the first place. The damn steering wheel was on the wrong side for Christ's sakes, but he had to give it to the rust-bucket, it was hiding some power under the hood.

Phee grinned as he took a corner hard and fast, and it was feral and full of fang.

Just like its owner then.

Checking his side mirrors, he was pleased to see that he'd lost the two wolves on his tail and debated slowing down in order to give them something to sight on, but Stiles had told him to go and get back, run a wide circle that would keep the wolves hunting but would end back where it had started. And besides, Stiles was going to need him. He always did. So instead of slowing down he hit the gas, laying his trail as the jeep belched the acrid black exhaust of an oil leak into the air, impossible for any wolf to miss.

Halfway back to the hospital Phee had decided that he almost felt bad for them, the alpha and the pack. Stiles had told him enough when he was in his cups or the throes of a nightmare that he suspected the boy was missed, despite the way things had ended. He could feel dislike towards these wolves because of that, because of the things he knew, but he could still feel bad for them. He believed what Stiles had said was true because the first time he'd heard the tales three long years ago the words had been colored with pain, not bitterness or anger, but he'd also seen a pair of red eyes glowing in his rearview mirror, and so yes, he believed that Stiles was missed. And personally, though he himself wore the fur of a lone wolf quite contentedly, he believed down to his toes that Stiles would be better off if he just confronted the pack, confronted what he'd left behind.

He didn't much care about the other wolves, not really, even though conceptually he could feel bad for them.

But Stiles would be better off.

It would hurt at first, viciously, but every wolf knew that you couldn't leave your foot in the jaws of a steel trap. Couldn't drag that injury around with you. Even if you had to bite through flesh and bone to free yourself.

Whipping the jeep into a parking space across from the SUV, he pocketed the keys and jogged inside, following the scent of clean soap and the woods and the mountains and his own heavy blonde pelt, the scent of _Stiles_, down the hallway to the little room where the Sheriff lay, fighting the poison that would change him but destroy his son. The door was closed and a quick look through the glass inset showed him Stiles sitting calmly on the floor inside his circle, his hands resting lightly on his knees as the candles flickered an inch off the ground. Around him chairs hovered, a pillow, the clipboard that held the Sheriff's file, and Phee knew he was well into the flow of whatever forces he was bending. Huffing a gentle breath of relief, he moved to the other side of the hall and dropped into a chair to wait.

* * *

**I Promise, next chapter you'll get an actual encounter, if not a reunion (: Reviews please!**


	8. Chapter 8

The hospital. The damned hospital. What the hell was the point?

Derek's heart was pounding in his chest, his lungs and legs burning, and there was a metallic taste at the back of his mouth that told him he'd pushed too hard, held back the wolf when he should have let it run. He'd followed behind Stiles' jeep at a punishing pace, losing Scott more than once but he still hadn't been able to keep up as he leapt ditches and blew across intersections on a wide ring around the outskirts of Beacon Hills proper. If he'd been smart he would've waited, wouldn't have gone tearing off after a vehicle he couldn't catch, a man who didn't want to be caught, but he hadn't been. Hadn't been smart, hadn't been thinking, hadn't been in control…

And all he could think was that he needed to run Stiles to ground, tackle him and press him into the earth beneath his own body, scent him and mark his neck with his teeth and then have his whole pack do the same.

Because Stiles was theirs. He belonged to them, to the Beacon Hills wolves, to the Hale pack. Not some strange omega, not whatever ashen power had ahold of him.

Stiles was _theirs_.

In that moment, seeing his old blue jeep standing in front of the hospital, it had been like nothing had ever changed. He'd forgotten that five years had passed. He'd forgotten that the boy had left without a word, disappearing from their lives like smoke and refusing any and all contact.

He'd forgotten why.

And now, hunched over at the edge of the parking lot with his hands on his knees, panting and choking for air, he was afraid. Afraid to go inside, afraid to see him, because now it all came flooding back and he remembered.

Stiles wasn't theirs anymore.

So here he stood with his hand out to the door, unable to feel his fingers, unable to take that last inch that would have his hand on the glass and steel and have the way open to him…

He swallowed hard when Scott moved past him with a worried glance, pushed through the door and held it until he moved sheepishly through into the hospital lobby, abruptly flush with heat in his cheeks and on the back of his neck, ashamed that he couldn't seem to grab hold of his own issues and _walk_. Snarling softly at himself, he mentally hiked up his manhood and strode strongly down the hallway, tracking that damned musty smell of wet dog through the air towards the Sheriff's room. The sight of a blonde giant standing braced in front of the door with massive arms crossed had his upper lip curling back over long, sharp teeth, and behind him Scott whined anxiously in the back of his throat, a warning to keep control.

They _were_ in a hospital after all.

"You're on claimed territory," Derek rumbled as he drew flush with the other wolf, his shoulders thrown back with a confidence he didn't feel too deeply. The twins hadn't lied; he was a big bastard. He had a strong jawline, thick, dark blonde hair and biceps as big around as Derek's thighs. "Might have been courteous to report your presence."

"We did," the wolf replied. "Thought the message was pretty clear."

Derek felt a growl rumble up through his chest, bubbling and expansive. Sourwolf, the message that had been sent, sent to _him_, the only part of it that had mattered, was _their_ word, their name, their story, and knowing this stranger understood the significance of that made him feel like he'd swallowed antifreeze, chill and oily and poisonously sweet. But still the wolf had confirmed the truth to him – he _was_ with Stiles, and Stiles was _here_, and that was all he really needed to know.

"Move."

He said it off-handedly as he moved towards the door, as though it were only a token command, as though he were certain the omega would already be stepping aside for him as he spoke the word, but the wolf stood firm, didn't even shift on his feet. Anger splashed inside of his chest, though in any other circumstance he wouldn't have been surprised, and he sneered, showing his teeth.

"I said _move_," he said, his voice dangerously low this time.

The omega dropped his arms to his sides with a loose roll of his shoulders, separating his feet, and Derek recognized it as a fighting stance.

"Can't do that," he rumbled lazily, as though they had all the time and patience in the world where Derek felt as if he'd completely run out of both. "Door stays shut."

This time Derek roared, flashing red eyes and fully formed canines, an Alpha's command thrumming in his voice, and still the wolf stood, didn't even flinch away from his authority, though behind him he sensed a tremor run down the length of Scott's spine as he fought not to drop in submission. The omega even dared to flash his eyes right back at him, a dark gold so deep it was almost ochre as he curled back his upper lip, showing off a set of teeth of his own. Derek might have taken a step back from him had he not been an omega, an omega standing in the way of his getting to Stiles.

"Might wanna watch your tone, _friend_," the big blonde warned in a low growl. "I'm not _your _wolf, and Stiles isn't your _anything_."

And that was it. The one thing this stranger could have said to make Derek want to kill him even more.

With a vicious snarl he drew his claws and lunged, ripping the wolf away from the door, slicing long, bloody gashes down the right side of his rib cage and tossing him across the hall where he collided with a support pillar, smashing brick and drywall before falling to the floor. He didn't think he heard the muffled shout behind him as he reached for the door, a warning as he depressed the latch and hurled it open, because suddenly he was on his knees and he was suffocating, his hands clawing at his throat as all the air was sucked from his lungs. Lifting his head in fear, trying desperately to drag oxygen into his dying chest, he found himself staring into the black void of Stiles' eyes.

Empty.

Bottomless.

Glaring right at him unable to see.

He barely registered anything else; not the wind that was funneling in through the open doorway like a vacuum, whistling and shrieking like a hurricane, not the way the flames of the candles flickered violently or the way most everything in the room was hovering an inch above any surface.

Not Stiles.

Just those chill, black eyes, glaring at him like they were trying to pull his soul out through his mouth and end everything he ever was.

Because he did feel like he was dying. Like there was a hook somewhere deep in his belly trying to pull him inside-out.

He felt his body start to cave, and then something crackled and sparked and Stiles threw a hand out towards him, slamming the door closed in his face.

**XXX**

The shadows screamed in his ears when he finally let them go, let the darkness drain away, back into the circle, the ether he pulled them from. He felt ruined, as he had the few other times he'd done this, but there was a sense of finishing too, a sense of things done, and he knew that the spell had worked. He moved quickly despite the suspicion that he'd somehow broken himself, that his ankles would go to jello if he stood. Pulling himself up by using the frame of the bed for support, he staggered to his father's head and pulled the new sprig of ashen mistletoe from beneath his pillow, crushed it in his fist, releasing the last of the power that burned at the tattoos on his wrists and spine. All his breath went out of him in a woosh as he gazed down at his father's face, gone slack now with easy calm.

Healing.

Human.

It was all he asked, of himself and of the powers he tampered with.

Later he would burn heather in an ivory bowl, would kneel on crushed pink quartz until his knees bled. He would hurt, and he would… _mourn_. He supposed that was the word. It wasn't praying. Wasn't quite meditation, not with the sharp rock cutting into his skin. It was… suffering. Giving back in thanks. Penance.

Stiles rubbed his temples as he shuffled back to the end of the bed, his vision blurry around the edges. A dull pain was starting to hammer at the back of his skull and he knew he needed Phee, wondered with a vague sort of half-consciousness where he was as he kicked through the circle of ash on the floor, bent and licked his thumb to pinch out the flames of his candles. The sharp heat snapped him back to awareness, a memory crashing through the blackout that had laid claim on his senses as he'd begun his incantations – the door being thrown open, a shout and a pair of grey-green eyes burning into him as all around him he felt wolves fall.

Wolves…

Fear lanced through his chest like the blade of a knife and he lunged for the door, clumsy on his rubbery legs as he practically fell through. He felt them there, all of them, two collapsed in a coughing, choking mess at his feet but he could taste blood in the air and when his eyes locked on Phee, crumpled in a heap with his hands on his side, everything else was smoke. Lurching towards him, Stiles tripped and wound up in a pile at his side, his hands running over the wolf frantically as desperation poured from his skin, fingers shaking as he shoved Phee's hair back from his face.

"Oh my god, oh my god!" he chanted, ducking to look into Phee's eyes. "The spell, the door, you opened the door!"

"Wasn't me," Phee yipped in indignation, though it was breathy with pain, shifting to sit up against the wall, one hand still tight on his side. "I'm o…"

"Shit, shit! The ward, the ward should've… Phee…"

"Stiles!" He barked, snapping him out of a panic attack that was sure to have been a real roller coaster. "I'm ok."

"But the ward…"

"Feckin' burns!" Phee snarled. Jerking aside the collar of his tank top, he revealed a shiny spider web of delicate pink burns in the shape of the pentagram, branded into the tanned skin of his upper chest. "But it works fine Stiles. I'm fine."

Stiles held his breath, looked Phee in the eye until he heaved a sigh and obligingly flashed golden irises.

"You're… you're fine," Stiles parroted back with trembling relief as he collapsed in on himself, determined to drive that reality through the foggy mess of his brain.

"I'm fine."

"Good," he muttered. "Good, that's… that's good. Pheelan?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I'm gonna boot."

Flailing for a trashcan, he practically dove inside of it as his stomach rolled violently, ejecting the thick, black bile he'd seen Derek puke up once, right before he'd asked Stiles to cut off his arm. Three more heaves and he'd purged it all, wrung himself inside out and dispelled the last bit of energy he'd been clinging to. He felt hands on his chest, slipping inside his leather jacket, and then a cool metal flask was pressed against his fingers. He took hold of the thing but hadn't quite pulled himself together yet, so he just hung on the sides of the bin, waiting to catch his breath.

"It went well then?"

Stiles snorted a laugh, his head still inside the trashcan as he flashed a thumbs up in Phee's general direction. The wolf was quiet again until he managed to sit up, dragged the back of his hand across his mouth and unscrewed the cap of the flask, taking a healthy swig of the thin red liquid inside.

"He's good," he rasped, his throat raw. "Sleeping. _Actually_ sleeping. There was still some left but I got it all. He's gonna be fine." Another swallow and he visibly perked up, a bit of color back in his cheeks as he felt an artificial energy run through him. He didn't like it, the brew Phee's grandmother had shown him how to cook up; it left him feeling cold and all the worse for wear after it had worn off, like coffee used to do, but it served his purpose when he needed the kick to get him through some dark place and back into the sun where he could burn away the chill that clung to his bones.

"You're bleeding," he said flatly as his eyes landed on Phee's side, where long lacerations curved around his rib cage and down onto his abdomen.

Another side effect.

You might know you were concerned, or scared, or righteously pissed off, but you couldn't _feel _it.

"Why aren't you…"

"You're friend's an alpha remember?" Phee jerked his head in the direction of the two wolves who were still hunched over on the floor, gasping and panting like dogs in summer, but Stiles kept his eyes locked on the red staining his shirt in a widening splash, not ready to look, not ready to see…

"It's gonna take longer to…"

But then Stiles had his hands on Phee's strong, flat stomach, thrust up beneath his shirt in a warm, skin-on-skin push and his words dropped away. It wasn't the place, in the middle of a hospital with people already looking, lingering at the end of the hall but too frightened to approach, to question the roars and snarling sounds, the massive thud that had battered the wall. It could have waited. Sure it hurt, but he wasn't bleeding out on the lemon-scented tiles. It could have waited. But Stiles was hurting too, and the wolf knew it, could sense his unease even over the physical distress his body was going through, and so he didn't pull away, instead allowed Stiles to drag his fingers over his skin as the muscles in his abdomen fluttered and contracted under his touch, as the bright, amber glow began to emanate out from whatever place inside of him found healing in this, this touch of wolf and pack.

Stiles watched as the long, vicious cuts in Phee's side began to knit themselves back together, the skin bubbling and smoothing out until there was no evidence of the damage left but a torn and bloodied tee.

"Thank you," he murmured, and Phee gave him the courtesy of not tossing the words back at him.

The wolf knew him well.

One big hand came up and stroked his jaw and then Phee was gone from his side, stepping over the wolves still prostrate on the floor and into the Sheriff's room, ostensibly to pack up Stiles' paraphernalia but more likely to leave him alone with his past. Swallowing hard, he finally turned around and did just that, his gaze flat and cold as he stared down at two of his what-ifs.

Two of his how-could-you's.

Two of his fuck-you-and-the-wolf-you-rode-in-ons.

Staring down, he couldn't say that he was any more angry with one than the other. Bitterness, hurt, cynicism and doubt, it was all there, but he would have thought that when he was finally faced with them, with the Beacon Hills wolves, the _Hale pack_, that he would harbor a greater hatred for their alpha than his ex-best friend. Still, looking at them now, Scott curled in a ball over his knees, whimpering to himself, Derek flat on his back with eyes shut and chest heaving, he couldn't say that he was more ready to talk with one than the other. Couldn't say that he was experiencing much sympathy, even though he hadn't meant for them to be exposed to the spell.

He shrugged.

Maybe he just wasn't feeling all that forgiving.

"The effects should wear off in a few days," he said without emotion, and he saw both of them flinch at the sound of his voice. "Till then I'd go easy on any heavy lifting."

Phee came back into the hallway then, stepping carefully around the alpha who was struggling to push himself upright. Stiles accepted his bag from the omega, slipped the strap over his head and turned to leave the hospital, surprisingly unsure of what to say after so many sleepless nights spent planning angry, self-righteous speeches. He froze when a hoarse, broken voice called out his name.

"Stiles! Please, just… just tell me what…"

"We need to talk," he interrupted, still keeping his back to the alpha but somehow knowing that Derek was on his knees, looking young and wrecked and scared. "But I'm about to drop, so it'll have to keep for a few hours. Sunset'll be soon enough. Bring the pack; know they don't much care in any case but I'm not so sure I won't kill you if we're alone."

It was a lie.

He wouldn't kill him, couldn't kill him, even though sometimes he thought he might want to.

No, he was afraid that instead he might fall to his knees and sob, shatter into a thousand pieces and never get up again. He'd changed in five years; learned and trained and worked to be stronger, _better_, so that no one would ever again call him a liability, a distraction, push him away because he was weak and vulnerable and human. He was steel now, a fucking force, death come to call when he had to fight, but inside he was still a broken seventeen year old who'd lost everything and believed he'd never get it back. It was true that he had buried that part of himself years ago and practically forgotten about it, but coming back to Beacon Hills had dug it all up again, and now he was left trying to climb back out of the hole left behind.

Always with the consequences.

"They want to see you."

Stiles felt his eyebrows jump as Derek's hesitant words broke through his musings, cocked his head as he considered, turned them over in his brain. "Do they now?" he murmured slowly, sarcastically. "Well isn't that a refreshing change of pace?" Shrugging the strap of his bag higher onto his shoulder, he started moving again, his feet finally ungluing themselves from the floor. "Tonight," he called over his shoulder. "After sunset."

"Where?"

Stiles just smirked and kept walking.


	9. Chapter 9

By the time Derek cut the engine of his Camaro in front of the Hale House he mostly felt like he could breathe again, even though there was still a tickling in the bottom of his lungs that he didn't like. He felt weak, shaky, as if his blood sugar were low, and Stiles' warning about side effects kept echoing in his ears. He and Scott barely made it through the front door when they were bombarded by the entire pack, grabbing on to them and hauling them into the front room, pushing them down into chairs before sitting cross-legged at their feet, waiting expectantly with eager, hopeful eyes. Only Peter seemed to realize that something was wrong, which both made total sense and made him feel like he'd fallen through Carroll's looking glass.

Derek ran shaking fingers through his hair as he watched his uncle disappear into the hallway, come back seconds later with two empty glasses and a jug of orange juice dangling carelessly from his fingers. Peter gave one over without a word, and he held it up soundlessly while the older wolf poured, filled it to the top and then watched until Derek started to drink before moving on to Scott, who had his head between his knees and was huffing hard through his nose. The quiet that had fallen told him they'd figured it out; all eyes following Peter, shocked by his strange show of paternal behavior. Allison had perched on the arm of Scott's chair and was stroking her hand through his hair comfortingly, accepted the second glass for him and attempted to coax him upright, but it was the care coming from the resurrected beta that was setting all their teeth on edge.

"I take it," he said with a touch of unnecessary amusement as he sat the gallon of juice on the floor near Scott's feet and moved to take up his position on the love seat next to Lily, "That our young Stiles wasn't too happy to see you then."

"Was my fault," Derek choked in a hoarse voice, moving to defend Stiles without a thought, even though when Peter rolled his eyes, the alpha got the feeling he'd taken the admission as more than it was intended to stand for.

Not that you couldn't say he was right.

"It was my fault," he repeated. "He didn't mean to… he was doing something, when we got there. Some kind of spell, or…" Derek shook his head, still not one hundred percent sure what he'd seen. "I opened the door. The omega, the omega told me not to but I opened the door." Peter raised an eyebrow sardonically at the idea of his nephew taking any kind of order from an omega, but Derek ignored him. He didn't understand. "It was like," he breathed, "It was like…"

"It was like he pulled the wolf out of you."

All eyes flashed to Scott, who had finally gotten himself up in his chair but was looking pale and clammy with a cold sweat.

"Felt like…"

His voice was a shaking ghost of a whisper now, and Derek felt a mirroring chill roll down his own spine.

"That's not possible," Peter rumbled, easily and confidently from his seat. "You can't _pull out _the wolf."

"Yeah well you weren't there, were you?!" Scott snapped.

The whole pack jumped save Derek and Peter, who only lifted an eyebrow lazily at the angry beta.

"You didn't feel it," he said, quieter now but with the points of his teeth showing beneath his lip. "It was like dying. Suffocating. Like a hook, here." He touched his fingers to his belly, his eyes far away. "Pulling at you. And then you just feel…"

"Empty."

Eyes turned slowly back to the pack alpha, who hadn't meant to murmur the word, but somehow hadn't been able to stop it. Still, it was true. Inside he felt shaken, as though his soul had been pulled away from the sides of his chest cavity, crushed, crumpled until it no longer filled him up the right way.

"Well did you at least _talk _to him?" Peter asked, clearly done with his brief spate of caring.

Derek grimaced.

"I don't think he… felt much like talking," Scott finished sadly.

A murmur ran round the group and Derek felt something flare in the pit of his stomach when he saw Erica's face fall, saw Lydia purse her lips as tears flooded her eyes. Isaac let out a soft, high-pitched whine of distress and even Boyd shifted uncomfortably in place. He felt the abrupt, overwhelming urge to reassure them, a wolf's need to comfort a pack member with the brush of bodies and smooth strokes of tongue and gentle rumblings.

He wished it were that simple.

"He said he did," the alpha corrected, "Said he wanted to talk. After dark, to find him, all of us. We'll find him, and we'll…"

Derek sucked in a breath, suddenly shaking with the memory of being driven down hard onto the floor, the wind screaming in his ears as his wolf was dragging, snapping and snarling, from his throat, the scent of Stiles hard in his nose and still all but buried beneath the smoke and berry burn of some kind of magic, eyes black and cold and _empty_.

"Derek?"

He didn't know who called his name. He thought it might have been Lydia, and wouldn't that just be a weird kind of karmic kick in the ass. He'd heard how she'd brought Stiles out of a panic attack with a kiss once, how she'd acted as a sort of temporary anchor for the boy, and then again when Stiles had drowned for his father during the fiasco with the Darach and the Nemeton, right before everything had gone holy hell. Leave it to her to be the one to bring him out of what he suspected might have been his own form of panic attack, his heart pounding against his breastbone and his hand at the base of his throat as he struggled to climb out of the endless void that had been Stiles' black, bottomless stare.

"Something's wrong," he choked. "Something's… that… that wasn't him. That wasn't Stiles. Something's…"

"How would you know?"

Derek's eyes flashed to his uncle and he felt anger explode in his chest.

"Shut up," he warned in a low and deadly tone.

Of course Peter ignored the warning.

"It's been almost five years since you've heard from that kid," he said flatly, slouching lower to put his feet up on the coffee table and throwing an arm out along the back of the love seat behind a nervous Lily. "Face it _nephew_. You don't know him anymore."

"I said _shut up_!"

Derek's eyes practically bugged out of his head as he slapped a hand over his mouth in a comical display of shock that would have had his betas rolling on the floor laughing if what had just come out of his mouth hadn't been even worse. What should have been an Alpha's roar, full of power and command complete with glowing red eyes and fangs had come out no louder than an average human's shout, and a weak one at that. Hell, coming from him it had practically been a pup's yip. Peter looked practically dumbfounded, apparently too surprised to even make a crack, and all the rest of his pack were staring at him with dropped jaws and a scent like unease. He tried twice more, and failed, to push his fangs from his mouth, to make a sound even a little bit like an alpha should make, but he couldn't do it.

"Do you believe me now?" Scott moaned miserably.

"Can _you_…" Derek asked distractedly in his direction, his fingers at his mouth as he tested the edges of his teeth with his thumb.

Scott sat still for a minute, apparently concentrating, but nothing happened.

"Nope."

"You see?" Derek said pointedly, glaring at his uncle. "Stiles wouldn't…"

"You don't think so?"

Peter scoffed.

"You're an idiot Derek." Shaking Lily off of his chest, he rose smoothly to his feet and ran burning blue eyes around the circle of the pack. "You all are. Jesus, did you just _forget_ that Stiles took off without a word? He left! Why do I feel like I'm the only one who knows why?"

**XXX**

Phee watched attentively from the wing-backed desk chair as Stiles worked silently through his penance. It was a grueling process, one that often left him achy and in a melancholy mood, and the werewolf had urged him to put it off, to wait until the next day at the very least, but he'd only shaken his head and laid out a bed of gravel on the floor, set fire to heather with a mumbled prayer, rubbed the ashes into his chakras at his wrists and throat before stripping down to his boxers and kneeling on the crushed stone. Phee's nostrils had flared as the sharp tang of copper burst in the air, the blood from his knees further pinking the quartz beneath him.

He'd explained it once. How the pain of kneeling for hours, of remaining entirely still through the agony, was a type of mourning. A type of thanks. Phee had asked him why he didn't just sacrifice a fattened calf if he was in the mood to be gratuitous, but Stiles had only laughed and replied that that was the sort of thanks you gave a wolf, not a power like the ones he offered up to. No, it had to be pain, and more importantly, it had to be his own. Something of himself, freely given.

So Phee let him give.

Kept careful watch, but let him give.

And in a way this was better, because there was strength in him again. He may kneel, he may bleed, but there was strength in him. In the lines of his back and shoulders, his spine ramrod straight, and in the way his palms rested lightly on his thighs, fingers refusing to grip and curl against the pain.

Small, quiet strength.

Pheelan ran his eyes over the slopes of Stiles' shoulders, touched on the heavy black circles along the sweep of his spine. It was a beautiful sight.

Beautiful, because the boy had been shattered when they'd left the hospital.

Silent, the whole way back to the hotel, and that silence had scared him more than anything he could remember.

He'd stripped the second he was inside the room with frantic, jerky movements, shed his boots and his jeans, ripped his tank over his head, pentagram still warm against his bare chest. Once more he'd tugged Stiles out of his jacket, carefully unloaded his pistol and pulled him out of his socks and his shirt before dragging him down onto the bed, rolling onto him so that his massive frame pressed the smaller man heavily into the mattress, grounding him, skin to skin. Stiles had come slowly out of his shock, his frozen, trance-like state and started to shake beneath him, begun to sob, tears scalding hot against Phee's collarbones as he buried his face in the wolf's neck, gripped his hair tightly, heaving out hard, painful cries against his throat. His skin had been ice cold in contrast, clammy with a hard sweat, and shaking, shaking so hard…

Phee's heart had tightened in his chest but all he could do was hold Stiles closer as his body was physically wracked with the emotional pain of years all coming to bear at once. He'd banded his arms tight around him until the screams he pressed into a pillow had finally been choked off, tears falling quietly then as he dragged air raggedly in and out of his lungs. It had taken an hour for him to calm down, an hour for a faint, weak glow to start warming him up, and it flickered and broke in a way that Phee had never seen it do. An hour to get there, and then another before Stiles had finally gone boneless beneath him, sagged limply as his eyes fell closed in exhaustion and the glow went out completely as he lost consciousness, dropped down and down and down into a dead-still sleep.

But Phee hadn't let go.

Couldn't let go.

Instead he'd wormed closer still, tried to pull so tight together that they stopped being two and just started _being_. He'd scent marked him as well, in the pale, watery sunlight that came in through the filmy curtains over the window and fell across the bedspread, dove into the hollow where his neck met his shoulder and breathed and snuffled and nuzzled gently, rubbing skin on skin. Always skin on skin with them, trying to find something that they weren't even sure was there, but he'd just kept holding on, kept pressing close until Stiles had finally stopped stinking of fear and pain and anger and just smelled like him, like _them_.

He'd managed almost three hours' worth of sleep, almost three, without tossing or turning or screaming awake with a nightmare, and Phee had breathed easy after a while, despite the fear still lurking in the shadows at the back of his mind. They had abated only a little when Stiles had finally blinked awake, ran his hand through his hair groggily and pushed up on his shoulder until he rolled away onto his back. No words passed between them but fingertips had followed, traced delicately over the fading pink burn left by the pentagram, sparked with heat and pulled the marks from him until there was nothing left and lips pressed a kiss to the newly healed skin above his collarbones. He'd climbed from the bed after that, moved into his rituals with only a sad sort of smile when Phee'd asked him to wait.

It seemed like ages before he came out of his prayers. And Pheelan believed that they were prayers, despite Stiles' denial. Still, ages before his breathing finally picked up out of its low, shallow pace, before his heartbeat returned to its normal, steady pounding. He staggered as his rose to his feet but Phee didn't offer support, knew better than to do so. He could only watch as Stiles brushed rock from his knees, blood running in ruby rivulets down his shins, silently packed his things away before disappearing into the bathroom where the shower came on with a shriek and a groan. By the time he re-emerged with his hair damp and his face shaven into hard, well-cut lines, darkness had fully fallen and Phee was dressed and ready to go, standing with his hands in his pockets after shaking out his shoulders.

"You ready?" he asks as he watches Stiles slip into his leather, check his pistol.

He only smirks, and racks a round into the chamber.


	10. Chapter 10

Stiles drove his jeep up to the far northern edge of the woods and walked with Phee to the rocky outcropping that overlooked the city where Scott had used to meet with Allison, where they had taken Jackson before they'd solved his little Kanima problem, where he had come and gotten horribly, horribly drunk on a bottle of his father's whiskey before making the decision to leave Beacon Hills for good. It was a beautiful view, had been and still was, all the lights of the city glowing far below them beneath a sky that was almost black under the lingering storm clouds of yesterday. A thin sliver of crescent moon showed through, casting only the barest silver light, but Stiles didn't need it. His senses were always sharper after he'd tapped into his darker energies, and then again after he'd run his penances. Now his skin thrummed with every movement of the air, his ears hypersensitive to every small sound that echoed out of the darkness.

Turning his back on the vista view of the place he hadn't called home in a long time, he kicked around in the dirt and dead leaves a bit, decided where he wanted to be when the pack showed. It was strategic, he supposed, to put his back to the cliff, have his flanks protected by the rough, jagged rock. They would have to come at him straight, fan out in front of him where he could see them all, and he wondered momentarily if he was expecting a fight. Pheelan was; he could tell from the way the wolf shed his jacket and tossed it over a tree branch, shook out his arms like a boxer, and although he appreciated the view of the moonlight kissing the heavy muscles in his bare shoulders, he reached out a hand to settle him.

"Not planning on any bloodshed are you?" he asked lightly, teasingly.

"Are you?" Phee countered.

Stiles chuffed a laugh, tossed him a half-smile. Didn't matter if he was or not, Pheelan would be ready. He always was. For an honest-to-god omega, a cut-and-dyed lone wolf, he was ridiculously protective of his own – the grandmother that he lived with and adored, his younger sister, who was human and who he rarely saw, _Stiles_. Sweet and soft on the inside, he nevertheless had the body of a fierce warrior, and he could _be _that warrior when he had to. Tonight was a night that he felt he had to; Stiles could smell it on him, see it in the way that he leapt lightly up to the top of a boulder just behind him and off to his left, stood with his feet wide beneath him and his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He would stand guard there as long as he felt necessary; a steady yet forceful presence that would offer support to Stiles and a warning to anyone else.

Setting his own feet, Stiles rolled his neck and shoulders, threw back his head, and _howled_.

It was an easy trick, one he'd learned a long time ago. Easy, to pull a wolf's howl out of his own chest. He was a Touchstone after all, a human meant to live and die with wolves, and it only made sense that he should be able to call his pack. Of course, he'd never really _had_ a pack. Still didn't, technically. But he had Phee, and he was enough to ground Stiles in his own skin, anchor him to his power, and so it was easy to open his mouth and _call_. They would know it was him. They'd never heard him call before, but every voice was unique, and his howl was his just as his words were, just as his scent was. It was a strong, powerful call that reflected only a bit of his rage, of his immense desire to _not _be calling to them, and it caused Phee to whine long and low in the back of his throat, but as the eerie, echoing sound finally faded, another struck up, somewhere near the center of the preserve only miles from where they waited. Wouldn't be long now.

Stiles frowned and dug a single cigarette from the pocket of his jeans, a slim hand-rolled that contained something other than nicotine. Stiles didn't smoke, not really, but every once in a while, perhaps two or three times a year, when he felt like the stress of his life was going to eat him alive, he would pick up a pack from the apothecary near Phee's grandmother's house, the one that sold things for people like him and just indulge. Times like that he usually ended up chain smoking his way through all of them in a few hours, spending days afterwards totally blissed out, lounging in a haze of stupid-silly grins, video games and junk food. Tonight, he just needed something to settle his nerves. Flicking his silver lighter to life, he inhaled deeply and held the smoke in his lungs before blowing it out slowly through his nose.

"That was no alpha," Phee murmured above him, and Stiles smirked around his cig.

True. Apparently Uncle Bad-Touch was still a part of the pack. Wasn't that just… interesting.

"Their alphagot hit pretty hard with my removal spell," he said aloud. "He won't have full control of his wolf back for a few days."

"Serves the bastard right," Phee snarled under his breath, no doubt intending that Stiles shouldn't hear. "Told him not to open the damn door."

"He never was big on communication," Stiles muttered. "Always did prefer just slamming people into walls."

He thought that Phee might've replied but he'd heard something, caught something on the wind and turned away, his back to the cliffs once more as he waited for the incoming wolf pack. He could hear them, heavy feet slamming against the earth, breath roaring hard in straining lungs. He could hear their hearts pounding in their chests, hear them crashing through the trees and the undergrowth as though he were running right beside them, and he felt a terrible yearning well inside his chest, hot and painful and wanting. Quickly enough they'd reached the creek bed and it was almost as though he could see them behind his eyes, knew who splashed messily through the water and slipped on the rocks, who leapt the small river and cleared it with grace and ease.

Slowly eyes began to appear in the dark, gold and blue glowing like the reflection off of a camera lens, and one by one they began to emerge out of the trees into the small clearing; Erica and Boyd, Peter and Isaac, the twins – all faces he knew but didn't know at all. They all looked exactly the same and it constricted something in his chest, because they didn't any of them look the same at all. Taller, broader, stronger, they'd all lived and grown and matured without him, and while he supposed that that was only the natural course of things, it still hurt.

Last of the pack to step into the barren place between the rock and the wood was Derek, the red gleam of his own eyes conspicuously absent, but there was a hesitance and vulnerability in his face that made him look young, younger than Stiles thought he ever could have been. It tugged at something inside of him, made him want to both ease that anxious fear with a gentle glow and crack him upside the head, ideally with his rowan wood baseball bat, and so, since he wasn't sure which option he preferred and because he'd left said bat in the hotel room, he chose to do nothing, just stand silently and take another hard drag from his cigarette, blowing a stream of smoke in the alpha's direction.

Derek took an uncertain step to his left and Stiles was sure he saw Peter smirk out of the corner of his eye, but he avoided looking at any of them directly, unable to bring himself to actually meet any of their gazes. He snarled low under his breath, angry with his own cheap cowardice, and the whole of the pack flinched back from the feral sound, surprised that a wolf's noise had come from a human throat.

Maybe they hadn't recognized his howl then.

Stiles felt his heart judder and he swallowed, focused hard on keep it beating flat and smooth and steady.

**XXX**

Derek stood nervously in the clearing with the rest of his pack feeling stripped, not only because of the way his senses were dulled but because of the way Stiles looked at him, at _them_, as though they were just casual strangers. The howl that had called them from the Preserve to the northern quarter up at the top of the bluff had sent a chill down his spine, made all the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand up. He'd assumed it was the omega, calling them in for Stiles, announcing their position to the pack, but something about it… It had felt familiar and eager and made him want for home, the wolf's den he'd managed to turn the Hale House into despite the blade of anger that had burned in the edges of the call. He begrudged Peter his responding call, angry that he couldn't do it himself, but it seemed his wolf was cowering inside him somewhere, and that was as concerning as it was embarrassing.

With his own voice out of commission it would have been Isaac's right to respond but his uncle had stepped in, earning him a furious glare and a rather unintimidating snarl, but Peter had merely rolled his eyes and taken off, leading the run into the trees towards the bluff, the pack hot on his heels. Derek had had to push to keep up, his heart in his throat as he hauled ass to keep up with his uncle, the anger burning in his veins not quite enough to give him the kick he needed to overtake the older wolf. It might have been nice, barreling hard through the woods with his entire pack, all of them intent on the same prey if that prey hadn't been Stiles, if he hadn't been afraid of what they would find at the end of the trail. He'd warned them as the sun had gone down, as he had led them into the trees half-changed that they needed to be careful, both with themselves and with the man who had once been their friend. Whether he believed it Stiles' intention or just a side effect of whatever dark thing had hold of him didn't matter; the boy was capable of hurting them, and they needed to know that.

Still, he didn't think that anything he said had sunk in. The pack had yipped and cajoled and romped through the trees, totally overcome with the joy of what to them must feel like a hunt, with the promise of finally seeing their friend again, and dark thoughts thundered in the back of his mind as he ran with them, afraid of what they were all expecting, afraid of what might actually prove to be reality. They didn't know, didn't understand that blackness that he had seen, hadn't felt the cold emptiness that he had in the hospital that afternoon, and there was no way he could make them understand. He hoped they wouldn't have to.

If they could figure out what was wrong, if they could fix…

Derek's heart slammed in his chest as he leapt the creek easily, gaining ground on the pack as they slipped and slid and splashed.

He knew what was wrong. At least, what had started out as wrong.

What he didn't know was how to fix it.

But then the scent of the omega and some strange smoke was filling up his nose and his feet slowed, the pack swarming passed him in their eagerness, breaking from the trees into the clearing where Stiles waited, braced against the rocks with the big omega looming like a hulking bodyguard above him, both backlit by a thin slice of crescent moon. Derek watched as Stiles' eyes lit briefly on each of his betas as they fanned out in front of him, but didn't linger on anyone in particular, and for a second it seemed like he was searching, and his heart skipped. Forcing his feet to move again, he finally pushed himself forward into the open and stood, scared and strangely cold. For just a second Stiles' gaze tripped over his body and it should have been like liquid electricity, but instead he felt like he was being sized up, measured and then disregarded.

Stiles lifted his hand to his mouth and suddenly Derek's stare was caught on his pale, slim fingers, the way his cheeks hollowed around the cigarette in his hand as he took a hard drag. The cherry briefly lit his face with an orange glow, making him look wicked and dark with the thin, unfamiliar lines of his beard and moustache, and then he was pursing his lips and blowing a lungful of herbal smoke towards him with a kind of dismissal that reminded him of disdain. It wasn't nicotine, but it wasn't pot either, wasn't anything he could identify, and he briefly wondered if perhaps that was what was affecting him so much before discarding the idea. He shifted anxiously, unsure if he should speak first or if it would be more… _polite _to let Stiles run the show. He was just about to open his mouth, just to break the tenuous silence, but a rumbling snarl had ripped out of Stiles throat and he knew – it _was _him that had called to the pack.

And that…

He swallowed, bit back a whine. Apparently that appealed to his wayward wolf.

He could feel the omega's hard eyes on him, only darting away fleetingly to keep track of the shifty Peter, and though he understood the wariness, even approved of the blonde wolf's obvious good judgment, it still made him feel like he was on trial, and he felt his hackles rise, tried to control his rolling emotions.

Hearing Stiles' voice, throaty and rough with smoke, break the silence didn't help with that.

"Might as well wait for the rest of your pack," he said to the wolves as a whole, though the words were directed to him. "Wouldn't want to give offense by slinging _injury_."

Behind him the omega snarled, low and loud, and Derek swallowed at the heavily implied reminder of the vicious, bloody slashes he had left in the wolf's side. He might have felt a little guilt if he wasn't being practically driven to his knees by the other implication Stiles had made.

_Your pack_.

Not _our _pack. Not _the _pack.

_Your pack_.

It was too exclusionary not to hurt.

"Lydia and Allison are almost here," he managed to respond around the lump in his throat. Stiles' gaze flicked away towards the trees where Derek could hear the motor of an ATV humming close by, and he wondered if Stiles somehow already knew where they were, knew that they would be in the clearing within minutes. "They're bringing lanterns, you'll be able to see..."

"I can see just fine," Stiles snapped, and Derek could have sworn that he saw silver flash in his dark eyes, like a lightning strike. It was gone before he was even sure it was there, but he was reminded of the way the moonlight looked when it was reflected off of water. Or blood.

He was distracted from his thoughts as Stiles started to pace in short, hard lines, his movements sharp and harsh as he spun viciously on his heel at the end of each stride. He was staring at the ground and sucking hard on his cigarette, and Derek felt his betas shift nervously around him, their desire driving them forward but their sudden anxiety and uncertainty holding them back. He could feel them looking to him, feel their distress on top of his own, compounding it, filling up his head and weighing him down, his chest tightening…

An ATV came roaring into the clearing, its headlight cutting through the dark and throwing Stiles into sharp relief, illuminating his pale skin and the deep, rich red of his leather jacket. He squinted against the harsh glare before the driver cut the bike's engine, climbed down along with their passenger and pulled off shiny black helmets, revealing a mussed Allison and a put-together-as-always Lydia. The red head stared at him with something almost like reverence while Allison lit the two lanterns she'd taken from the back of the four-wheeler, and even from the other side of the clearing Derek could see the tears welling up in her eyes, the trembling in her fingers as she lifted her hand to her mouth.

"Stiles?" she tremored, the only one brave enough, or maybe breaking enough, to breach the new silence.

Derek watched intently as Stiles stared at her a minute, sadness fleeting at the corners of his mouth.

"Hey Lyds," he murmured.

And then he was flicking the ash off the end of his cigarette and stepping carefully out of the circle of light cast by the lanterns, back in to the shadows as though he hadn't just cracked right in front of them, five years of pain gleaming in his eyes, in those two little words. Turning back to Derek he narrowed his eyes and just like that all the pain was gone, locked away where it might never see the light again, and the only thing that was left was the dark, endless void that he thought he might be able to drown in if he tried.

Stiles looked him up and down, a muscle ticked in his jaw.

"Let's get this over with."


	11. Chapter 11

It was fascinating really, the way they reacted to the sound of his voice.

He could feel the longing in them when they'd first come into the clearing, could feel how much they wanted to just pounce on him, bury him in a pile of pack and rub their bodies against him in that way wolves did, and fucking hell, they weren't the only ones who wanted. There were times when he might've done a lot of bad things for that, to be a part of a pack, _their _pack, but they had made it pretty clear that they weren't interested in having him, and so what right did they have to whine at him like kicked puppies? What right did they have to blame him for his confusion, old bitterness still strong in his mouth. He didn't understand the change, didn't like it – it threw him off, and he wasn't ready to feel those things. Wasn't ready to want.

So he snarled, snarked about waiting for Allison and Lydia, snapped about Derek's having slashed up Phee, and they all reacted, the scent of their nerves flaring in the dark as they shifted anxiously, looking to an alpha who couldn't help them, couldn't fix the wrongness that hung in the air. It sat on his skin like oil and made him want to roll around in the dirt, to slough the scent and sensation of it off himself with grit and gravel, but he wasn't exactly ready to strip down for them yet, to show so much vulnerability, so instead he began to pace, hard, fast, sucking at his cigarette in a desperate attempt to settle the raging emotions pushing against his diaphragm.

He didn't appreciate the harsh glare of the ATV's headlamp as Lydia and Allison came riding into the clearing, but he tried not to show it, just watched as they climbed off the bike and shook out their hair, Allison offering him the smallest of smiles before touching Lydia's wrist and moving to light the two electric lanterns, bathing half the pack in a blue, unnatural glow that was nothing like his. As for Lydia herself, she was just as beautiful and perfect as she'd always been, and it cut at him to see her fighting not to cry. Of all of them, all the pack, she was maybe the one whose loss he had felt the most, perhaps because she was least responsible for his leaving, and he had to stop himself from wrapping her up in his arms and falling, hugging her tight and sobbing into her neck. Instead he withdrew, built up his mental walls and hardened his heart so that they wouldn't see him crack, but he still couldn't stop himself from offering her the smallest reassurance, greeting her with softness in his voice and her old nickname.

But that was all he would give.

Stepping out of the uncomfortable electronic shine of the lights, he flicked the ash from his cigarette, took another hard drag before turning back to face the alpha of the pack, the one with the look on his face like he would fall to his knees for Stiles if he only asked, and that both tugged at him and made him want to scream. He could have sneered, could have snarled with it, but instead he'd just ground his teeth and started the parley.

_Let's get this over with_.

He felt them flinch at those hard, business-like words and he thought his eyes must've flashed, thought something must've thrummed in his voice because most of them took a step back, clawed fingers curling into fists.

"Look at them," he murmured to Phee in Gaelic before switching smoothly back into English, taking a perverse sort of pleasure at the way the pack frowned in confusion at the foreign words. "Scared like shadow. You can smell it on them, all cherries and ice. See it in the way they shift." He tested the points of his teeth with his tongue, sharper than they should be, looked back over his shoulder. "What was it Machiavelli said?"

Phee's voice rumbled in his ears from his position on the rocks above, hard and ready.

"Far better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."

Around him he felt the wolves swallow, felt them shrink in on themselves, but then Lydia spoke in a strong and confident voice, as steady and perfect as she ever was.

"Hateful is the power," she said, "And pitiable is the life of those who wish to be feared rather than loved."

Stiles saw surprise flit across Phee's face, saw his stance soften as he cocked his head, looked Lydia up and down.

"Cornelius Nepos," the wolf replied, admiration in his tone before he turned back to Stiles with a smirk. "You always said she was quick."

"Always," Stiles answered wistfully before his voice went dead and cold. "But who said anything about wishing?"

Lifting his cigarette he managed to pull one last hard draw out of it, hissing when he burned his fingertips and dropping the butt to the ground, crushing out the cherry under the toe of his boot.

"Not gonna waste your time so let's get right down to it," he said, and his voice was loud and firm again in the uncertain quiet that hung over the clearing. "Where's the alpha?"

Silence followed and he thought it might be shock, which was the only reason he didn't whip up a thunder strike to emphasize himself before repeating the question. He could do that. It took a lot of energy, and was really just a flashy, showy dick-ish move to pull, but it would have been funny. In fact, he might still...

Scott cleared his throat, ruining Stiles' opportunity for a little light show as he looked carefully between Derek and Stiles, gripping on hard to Allison's hand.

"Um, w,what alpha Stiles?" he asked carefully, and Stiles knew what he meant, because Derek's eyes still weren't able to burn red the way the rest of the pack's were glowing blue and gold. Still, it was a shit question for an ex-best friend to ask.

"The one that _bit_ my father you _jackass_," Stiles hissed, his words slow and clear, controlled only because he knew that his father was safe and resting in his hospital bed. "The one that almost severed his jugular, the one that almost…"

"We're looking for him."

He turned his head slowly to drop an icy cold gaze on the alpha who had cut him off, not swayed by the panicked, pleading look on Derek's face.

"We're looking Stiles. We'll…

"Looking for him." This time it was his turn to interrupt. "So let me see if I understand this. There's a rogue alpha, no, wait, _another_ rogue alpha, on _your _territory, and not only is he still alive, he's running around free."

"Stiles…"

"Jesus!" he cursed under his breath, turning away to start pacing again, the wild gesticulating movements of his past-self making a reappearance, much to his dismay. "Five years and you still don't have your shit together!"

"We'll find him," Derek ground out, and he could tell by the sound of his voice that he was stepping closer, steps he refused to acknowledge. "Stiles, I _swear_. We'll make sure he's safe until we can get him to your…"

"I don't _want_ him safe!" Stiles roared, whipping back around hard to find Derek close enough to touch, close enough to reach out and _shove_, and so that was exactly what he did, planting his palms flat on the alpha's chest and hurling him backward, ignoring the betas who gasped and staggered away from him, horrified to see their leader go hurtling backwards and land hard on his ass several yards away. The spark too he ignored, the hot tingle in his palms that came from having touched, having finally fully broken the seal that had kept him separate from everything all these years.

Back then he wouldn't have been able to move Derek even an inch if the wolf hadn't wanted to go, and he never had.

So this was good.

This meant that they knew.

Things were different. He wasn't a defenseless liability anymore.

"I don't want him safe," Stiles snarled, quietly now as he stalked forward until he was looming over the shocked alpha who staring up at him with a kind of confused fear. "When I find him I'm gonna turn that fucker inside-out. Trim myself a new pair of boots."

This elicited several gasps but Stiles once again ignored them, turned from Derek and walked back to his place at the bottom of the rocky outcropping, his eyes meeting Phee's for only the briefest of moments and finding approval there. They both knew that he wouldn't go through with the threat. What he was was about protection at its core, about healing, and if a wolf was not presenting a direct threat to what was his then there was very little chance that Stiles would be able to bring himself to lash out.

"Well Stiles, I have to say, I like the new you."

Ok, so maybe he would.

"Peter," he replied, schooling his tone into emotionless calm, "Keep your fucking mouth shut or I'll do me a coat too. When I want your opinion I'll ask for it; until then I'll take my answers from your alpha or his second, understand?"

To Stiles' ever-lasting surprise, the blue-eyed beta only smirked with something like pride around the edges of his mouth, inclining his head and taking a step backwards with a graceful, sweeping motion to Isaac, ceding him the floor. The tall, skinny blonde looked panicked for a moment but quickly reigned it in, determination on his face, and Stiles didn't have to wonder why he'd risen through the ranks to become first beta in the Hale pack. He could practically smell the title on him, and it was one that fit him well. He was almost eager to see how the once timid, messed up teenager would respond, but unfortunately Lydia wasn't one to bow to pack hierarchy.

"But Stiles, what about your dad?" she asked carefully. "Derek said that if he can kill the alpha that bit him, he won't turn into a werewolf."

Stiles practically _felt_ his eyes darken, his pupils dilating in the dark. He'd thought what had happened at the hospital earlier should've taken care of that nagging little concern, come too late as it was, but apparently not. It burned like an acid in his stomach, eating at him, and it only served to fuel the anger that ran through his arms down into the tips of his fingers where heat sparked. His pulse began to pound as he let himself feel that anger, a sense of betrayal almost overwhelming him as he remembered the nasty bite wounds on his father's chest and neck, remembered the nightmare that had brought him into consciousness with a silent scream only days ago back in Ireland and he began to pant with it, his chest heaving as he fought the shadows for air.

**XXX**

Pheelan knew that he should have expected the rage to take Stiles.

Should have seen it coming.

It was only one small part of what the young man experienced when he thought about what had happened to him five years ago in Beacon Hills. Only one small part of what Phee had seen and smelled and tasted when he'd kissed away Stiles' tears that first time as they backpacked across Europe and half of Asia. A year later, when they had finally settled in Ireland with his grandmother, some of that rage had dulled, but the wolf knew it hadn't really gone away. Might never go away

He himself had never known the rejection of a pack. He had chosen to go his own way from his parents when the closeness and hierarchy of their den had begun to rankle and fester, so he couldn't lay claim to knowing what Stiles was going through. Still, if the physical manifestations of the emotions that the Touchstone suffered from were anything to go by, he could imagine just how deep that pain must go. The only problem was that Stiles had recently purged himself of a lot of that pain, a lot of that hurt, and so for now the only thing left was rage.

As he leapt down from the rocks to land lightly at Stiles' side, the brief thought flickered through his mind that he was going to have to amend his praise of the red-head. He'd thought her pretty quick, pretty and quick, just as Stiles had always lauded her to be, but then she'd gone and opened her mouth a second time and essentially said the absolute worst possible thing that could have been said.

Because what she said reminded him.

Yes, he'd been struggling with all the emotions of facing his past and the pack that had crushed him so badly, but that was pain.

That this pack had allowed his father to be hurt, that they hadn't protected the Sheriff in his absence, for Stiles _that_ was real betrayal.

And with betrayal came rage.

Crouching down so that they were face to face, he grabbed on hard to Stiles' upper arms, hard enough to hurt, and gave him a rough shake, but he could already see the shadows swirling behind his eyes, that shadows that he thought he had so well under control, the shadows that he didn't know Phee recognized.

"Shit," he muttered, filled with a sudden cold dread as he realized just how bad this was, exactly where it was going.

"Stiles!" he barked. "Stiles! You've gotta let it go little buddy. Come on, let it go."

A chill wind began to whip through the trees and above the scream and whistle of the branches he could hear the two twins whimper, saw the shrink out of the corner of his eye as the others shifted anxiously, eyes wide and fearful in the dark. He shook Stiles again, even harder this time and he heard the wolves around him rumble and growl under their breath but he ignored it. His hands were literally full; Stiles' chest was heaving as he showed Phee his teeth in a silent snarl, his eyes almost black. He pushed one hand roughly through Stiles' hair, combed it back from his forehead but it did nothing to calm him. He tried to tear away but Phee tightened his grip, jerked him in closer so that they were almost chest to chest, Stiles hands coming up to push  
and pry, but he held on.

"Stiles!" he snarled, shifting his grip to control the boy's wrists, trying a different track. "Your dad's ok right? He's ok, he's fine. Your dad's fine. You did that Stiles, _you did that_. Now come back. Come back!"

This time when Stiles showed his teeth, he _roared_, and every beta in the clearing cringed. Only the alpha and the omega able to stand tall and strong against the vicious expletive, but where Derek just went pale and open-mouthed, Phee smirked. That was his boy. Still in there underneath it all. Stiles hated being told what to do, hated being held still, and it was a relief to know he wasn't totally gone yet.

Yet being the operative.

Above their heads thunder cracked violently, the sound so loud that the wolf could feel it in his chest, and a shiver rippled down his spine as he realized what he was going to have to do. He found himself abruptly and intensely grateful that Stiles had dropped the silver pentagram over his head. Pulling back from the struggling young man, he ground his teeth and balled his fist tight.

"Don't fry me for his ok?" he muttered.

And then he swung.


	12. Chapter 12

Phee's fist connected perfectly with his jaw, clipping the side of his mouth and splitting the corner of his bottom lip. The pain and the burst of copper on his tongue, vague, angry shouting in his ears brought him back from the edge of the cliff he was teetering on, sent him staggering away with limbs akimbo in an attempt to stop himself from face-planting. It was Scott who caught him by the elbow, pulled him gently back to his feet before Stiles jerked back, shook him off with a glare and turned away from the flash of hurt on his face to find Phee facing off with Derek, Isaac, and Erica, snarling nastily at each other while Peter watched on with arms crossed and a smirk on his face.

"Phee!" he coughed, and all the tension immediately bled out of him, his claws and fangs withdrawing as he turned his back on the three wolves threatening him and trotted the few paces over to Stiles' side, put a hand under his jaw to tip his face up and look into his eyes.

"I'm ok," he mumbled, and Phee took a step back, even though he could feel the want in the wolf, hear the low, anxious whine that came from the back of his throat. He didn't doubt that the big blonde was feeling guilty; he always did when he had to literally knock Stiles out of his funk, and always insisted on healing the bruises he left behind, pulling out the pain through blackened veins so that he felt it too instead of just letting it dissipate through Stiles' soothing glow.

"I split your lip," he said flatly, and Stiles drew the back of his wrist over his mouth to get the trickle of blood off his chin.

"Yeah. Thanks for that," he answered, and he knew that all the wolves in the clearing could hear the steady, even beat of his heart, no tick of irritation or lie echoing the words. Sliding past Phee so that he brushed against the big wolf's chest, he threw a wink over his shoulder. "Maybe later I'll let you kiss it better," he grinned in Gaelic.

Phee's eyes flickered and the wolves around him shifted, confused by the whole display, but they weren't the only ones. They'd jumped in to protect him, defend him, and while in some ways he could understand it - they _had_ been friends once after all - in others it just cut. The fact that it had been Derek, Erica, and Isaac to jump forward, ready to take on a strange wolf practically three times their size for _him_... he didn't like it. It made him squirm. Made him feel… guilty. Rolling his shoulders in an attempt to shake it, he stepped onto a clear, level spot halfway between the wolves and the cliff, withdrawing a small glass vial from one of his pockets.

"Stiles."

It was a warning not to do anything stupid, not to do anything that would drive him right back to the edge he'd just been saved from, but he wasn't planning on doing either. Casting Phee a reassuring smile, he uncorked the bottle and tapped a minute amount of grey ash into his palm. Closing his eyes, he took a minute to center himself, took a minute to feel the gentle burn of the circles inked into his skin, and then he breathed. He'd always been good with the ash but now he was literal perfection, and it was almost effortless to dance it through the air around him until it fell in a thick, heavy circle at his feet, wide enough that his fingers would just brush the edges if he held his arms out straight. Folding his legs beneath him he sank slowly to the ground, settled Indian style with his hands on his knees, comforted by his close, protective walls.

"This really the time?"

Phee had moved to stand two paces from the edge of his circle, still back and to the left, still ready, his stance wide and solid and his hands thrust deep into his pockets. There was a frown at the edge of his mouth that Stiles couldn't blame him for, even if the wolf was misconstruing his intentions. He had good reason to be mistaken; he knew that Stiles liked to be held down, tied tight after he came back from something like that, pressed beneath the omega's body or within his circle, but sometimes too he did the dumb thing and would jump right back in head first.

"No," he answered easily, calmly, his eyes closed as he centered himself. "It's really not. Which is why we're just gonna talk. Have a nice little chat and then tomorrow I'll find the alpha myself. After we get my dad home."

Opening his eyes again, he saw Lydia shift nervously, unhappily, and from the enclosed safety of his circle he could respond to it without losing his shit.

"Relax Lyds," he murmured, glancing up at the sky where the clouds still swirled from his little loss of control. "He'll be fine. Back on the job within a week, I promise."

"But Stiles," she said softly, "He's… he's _turning_. Derek said he was turning."

"Was," Stiles replied off-handedly, and that was really all he wanted to stay, but he knew how Lydia's mind worked, and so he was ready when she pressed.

"Was? What…"

"It's easier than you'd think," he murmured, and his voice had gone soft without his permission, all black silk and purring seduction, and he wasn't sure why. "To pull out the wolf. The poison. At least before the first turn anyway."

"That's not possible."

Peter's voice hit his ears like a cymbal crash, and the nervousness he heard there was sweet enough that he didn't reprimand the wolf for speaking out of turn when he'd already been warned not to. Stiles smirked, grabbed on to the toes of his boots and rocked a bit on his hips, a sudden, childish mischievousness rolling over him.

"Nooooo, and neither are _werewolves_," he mocked with a laugh.

Peter's eyes flashed at him and Stiles felt his own darken in response but he bit it back, settled himself lower to the earth in the center of his circle, pushing away the shadows and the power that came with them.

"You don't believe me you can ask your alpha," he continued in a cocky sort of sing-song, a smart-mouthed smirk on his face as he turned his gaze to the man in question. "Come on Derek. Let's see that big bad wolf."

**XXX**

It was… scary, how different he was.

Five years had changed him – he wasn't a boy anymore. There was muscle evident in the breadth of his shoulders and the width of his chest, even under his hoodie and his leather. Red. He wasn't oblivious to the metaphor. He was like some darker Grimm's tale, all pale skin and dark eyes and thin, sharp lines around a mouth like sin. He was caught by the harsh words, all business where the pack whimpered and whined and wanted, the stillness in him where there was once flailing and staggering, and he found himself wishing that Stiles would laugh. Wishing to see a glint of mischief in whiskey-colored eyes.

Instead he saw anger.

He could smell it like liquid smoke on the back of his tongue and feel it when Stiles stepped carefully out of the light of Allison's electronic lanterns and back into the shadows. He paced and snarled, pulled hard on whatever it was that he was smoking, and it was all harsh and dark and _wrong _somehow.

It wasn't him.

It wasn't Stiles.

And then he was talking in some strange tongue before jumping back to English as though he'd never slipped out of it, making some cutting comment about Machiavelli that the big blonde omega replied easily to, like it was some well-worn joke, and he almost showed his teeth at the bridges being burned between them, feeling like he was falling farther and farther away with each word bitten out. He thanked his gods for Lydia, rushed by relief when she was able to pull herself together enough to toss out a suitable comeback, to put surprise and admiration on the face of Stiles _friend_ when he was so tied by the scent and movement and _nearness _of him that he didn't think he could have saved himself from drowning.

And then he'd asked after the alpha, the one that had bitten the Sheriff, and Derek's tongue was heavy in his mouth and he couldn't swallow around the overwhelming sense of guilt and pain trying to choke him. This time Scott stepped up and it was a shame he did, because he asked a stupid question and Derek was jolted into the fray in with a sense of panic like he'd had when he'd been paralyzed in the deep end of the school swimming pool, a pale, skinny Stiles the only thing standing between him and a watery death. He'd tried to explain, tried to apologize, but the more he talked the worse it seemed to get, and all he could think was that he wanted to get his hands on man in front of him and shake the boy back to the surface, to rattle his shell loose until all that was left in front of him was the smirking, sarcastic teen he missed so much.

But apparently touching was off limits.

No one was more surprised by Stiles' ability to pitch him across the clearing like a ragdoll than Derek. It was like the world had tilted on its axis, a pure, white-hot rage pouring off of Stiles like a tidal wave as burning hot hands were laid flat against his chest and then he was lying, landing hard several feet away with a face like shock and horror. He flashed back to that first year he'd known the kid, when he'd been a wanted fugitive and had thrown him up against the wall of his bedroom in a bid to scare him into harboring him. Stiles had flinched back, cowered, his eyes flicking around nervously as he'd pushed uselessly at Derek's chest, fighting a losing battle to get away. Whatever had its claws into Stiles, whatever was clinging to him, it had changed the power dynamic.

In his musings he'd missed some sort of cold speech, but came back to attention in time to see Stiles put Peter soundly in his place, and while he could be thoroughly impressed by the feat it also frightened him to see his uncle smirk, see him cede so quickly and easily. He didn't think it boded well for him or his, and he was quickly proven right when Lydia made careful comment about Stiles father, and suddenly the boy was breaking before their eyes.

His irises had gone completely black, just like they had at the hospital, and his hands fisted hard at his sides as his chest began to heave. A dull, bitter scent flared in the air around him and he took a hesitant step forward – he recognized this. This at least looked the same. Because it was a panic attack right, like he'd had before? You just had to pull him out of it right?

Before he could move to Stiles' side the big blonde wolf leapt down from the rocks and had gripped him tightly by the shoulders, giving him a good shake. It was a bit literal for Derek's tastes, too rough, and he took a strong step forward to pull the two apart, but a sudden chill wind rose out of nothing and began to whistle through the trees, icy and unnatural and the twins began to whimper and shift. He couldn't feel the earth moving under his feet, but he remembered their anxious whines and suddenly he didn't doubt that the ground _had _shaken beneath them. The omega was snarling, barking sharply as Stiles fought in his grip, and Derek felt his teeth trying desperately to lengthen, sharpen, until Stiles opened his mouth and _roared_.

Fucking _roared_.

All around him his pack crumpled, instinctively bearing their necks as they tried to stay off their knees, he and the blonde the only ones not crushed by the authority in that sound. If anything convinced him that Stiles was possessed somehow, that was it. Skinny, defenseless Stiles with a roar like an alpha. Above them thunderheads clashed with a concussive rumble that he could feel all the way to his core, and he felt himself go cold with whatever hummed in the clearing around them, and he saw an answering shudder role down the spine of the omega holding Stiles wrists captive. And then, in a move like lightning, he was cocking back one huge fist and aiming for Stiles' face.

He couldn't get there in time.

He tried.

He… he tried.

But he wasn't fast enough, and he was pretty sure the crack that resonated on connection was Stiles' jaw cracking. Copper burst in the air and then he was bleeding, staggering away, and the only thing that kept Derek from catching him before he hit the ground was Scott getting there first. He experienced his own burst of rage in that moment, and he almost thought that his wolf was going to come surging back until it didn't. With or without it he wanted to kill, to rip and tear and slash but the stranger could probably crush him like this, broken, weak. Still, Erica and Isaac came lunging up on either side of him, eyes gleaming and fangs bared as they snarled their fury, ready to tear the blonde apart for touching their pack mate, their Stiles. The omega rolled his massive shoulders, spread his feet and snarled right back at them, but a choking cough cut his tension like a taut string, and he turned away from them as though they were nothing, no threat at all.

Derek felt something roil in his stomach as the wolf stepped in close, put his hand out and tipped Stiles' face up to examine the quickly forming bruise blooming along his jawline. His lip had split and there was blood dribbling down his chin, but Stiles only grinned at the omega and thanked him for the punch, brushed him off without a beat of a lie and slinked past him before tossing a wink and a foreign murmur over his shoulder and Derek thought he might be sick.

He watched with equal parts dread and fascination as Stiles took a jar from his pocket and filled the air with the scent and the power of mountain ash, created a circle as easy as breathing before settling slowly to the earth, his ease and relief inside its safety horribly evident, and then Derek _knew_ he'd be sick. That Stiles needed that barrier to be comfortable, to feel calm around them… it was like a knife in his side. He was being crushed beneath the overwhelming need to be close, to be skin on skin and breathing the same air, taking the same space as the man he hadn't seen in so long, stronger than five years' absence should warrant, no matter how much he'd missed him, and the barrier between, the one that he could not cross, seemed to be physically hurting him. His joints throbbed with it, his teeth aching, and he found himself tongue-tied once again as Stiles watched the sky.

He barely heard the words being passed. Knew somehow that they were talking about Stiles' father, human again even though Derek knew, _knew _that the man had been turning. Peter's fear spiked hard and hot in his nose; apparently you _could _pull the bite out of the bitten… with enough power. His brain wasn't firing on enough cylinders to be smug about being right, about recognizing something different, something wrong. All he could do was watch as Stiles smirked and rocked and teased, a dark shadow of who he used to be.

And then his voice turned to a low, seductive purr, cutting its way through the fog and Derek felt something clench low in his belly, felt a high-pitched, keening whine sticking in his throat as a sudden hard arousal bit at his ankles. Stiles' gaze flicked in his direction, darted over his body before meeting his eyes, burning him, and then he was smirking, humming a little tease, and hearing his own name on Stiles' tongue was frisson on his skin.

"Come on Derek. Let's see that big bad wolf."

* * *

**Confession time. When Allison died, I really didn't care all that much. Sorry girl, moving on. When Aidan died. O.M.G. I cried. Finally a good guy at the end, hurting for his brother and for Lydia. Tears.**

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	13. Chapter 13

Saying his name out loud was like candy on Stiles' tongue; sharp and bitingly sour, then mellow and familiar and sweet, until it melted away and left him with an artificial strawberry aftertaste that made him feel cold and empty despite his teasing tone. He knew that Derek wouldn't be able to shift, that he'd caught the full brunt of the spell and gotten hit square in the chest with it. It would be days before he was back up to full howl, and Scott was probably only a little bit better off. Now the alpha just shifted awkwardly, his fingers twitching at his sides as he looked down at his feet. Stiles took the opportunity to look him over, really stare for the first time since he'd gotten back and he hated himself for liking what he saw.

Not that Derek looked all that different. A bit pale, maybe, and he'd gone back to the lighter five o'clock shadow he'd worn when he'd first reappeared in Beacon Hills, but he wore his hair the same way, his black leather jacket and his jeans. He looked just as fit, just as strong, and Stiles was… well, he was disappointed. He'd hoped, having been with Phee for years and having bulked up himself, that Derek would seem… smaller. Less significant. Less big bad wolfy.

Less… _attractive_.

Jerk.

He wasn't really surprised that such was the case. Disappointed, sure, but not surprised. He couldn't exactly expect _Derek Hale _to get less hot just because _time_ passed. Heh. Stupid. What _was_ he thinking?

"Well?" he prodded blankly, desperate for distraction to pull him away from the dark, destructive path his thoughts were taking.

Derek shifted again, made a small noise in the back of his throat that dragged at Stiles, made him want to reach out, to draw the wolf close and comfort him. He shook it off. It was only his glow talking, making him want. He knew that. _He _was still angry, still unhappy, and he wasn't going to let go of that so easily.

"I can't."

"Can't what?" he asked off-handedly, still preoccupied with reigning in his baser instincts.

"Can't shift!" Derek shouted and Stiles jumped, startled back to attention, and he knew that if they could the wolf's eyes would've glowed red. "You know I can't! You did it!"

As soon as the words were out of Derek's mouth the color drained from his face, his eyes widening as he took a step back.

"Stiles, I…" he began, horror in his voice, and Stiles narrowed his eyes. "I didn't mean... I know it wasn't you, I know you didn't…"

Stiles arched one eyebrow. "Wait, didn't _what_?" he demanded, anger and annoyance sparking in his chest. Climbing to his feet, he fisted his hands at his sides. "I knew exactly what I was doing, it wasn't _my_ fault! You're the one who opened the door, you're the one who…"

"Stiles."

Phee's calm, easy tone cut through his anger, redirected his attention long enough to let it bleed quickly away.

"Well he was," Stiles pouted obstinately, rolling his eyes before crouching down on one knee and taking the ash vial from his pocket.

"He thinks you're in too deep… possessed."

Stiles paused in sweeping up the circle of ash back into the vial, stared back at Phee dumbfoundedly before looking rapidly back and forth between him and Derek, who was staring at him oddly, like Stiles might leap up and bite him at any moment. He actually thought…

Laughter bubbled up in Stiles' throat until he couldn't hold it in anymore, and then he was practically rolling in the dirt with it, holding his sides as he choked and guffawed so hard he couldn't breathe. Done with the ash, he capped the jar on the third try and stashed it inside his pocket, knuckling tears from his eyes as he stood once more.

"Oh, god," he gasped, fighting to catch his breath between chuckles. "That's… that's _priceless_."

"Stiles…"

"No, no, it's fine," he giggled, waving Phee off. "It's just…" He snickered again. "Nothing's changed. God, I _love_ it Phee! Five years and nothing's changed. It's beautiful. Makes sense though doesn't it? Of _course_ I'm possessed, how else could I do it? _Weak_, _defenseless_, _useless_, _pathetic_…"

Phee's hand closed around his upper arm, grounding him, pulling him out of his little spell of mania. It was the cigarette he'd smoked, and the emotions, and the ridiculousness of it all getting to him, he knew, but the bite of the werewolf's grip brought him back down to the earth one more time, and Stiles might have kissed him for that, for saving him another display of crushing anxiety and vulnerability in front of the pack. Pheelan moved to step away again, always letting Stiles prove that he could stand on his own feet, but he jerked the blonde back in, leaping up to catch him around the shoulders so that his feet dangled inches off the ground. Burying his face in the curve of Phee's neck, he nuzzled in close, scenting him, breathing him in, and behind him he could hear the pack whimper and whine. He snickered in Phee's ear, nipped at his jaw, and felt Derek's eyes burning between his shoulder blades, heard a low growl rumble out of his chest that sounded more like a human faking werewolf than a real one.

"Stiles."

"What?" he groaned, still hanging from Phee's shoulders.

"Don't instigate."

"Ugh! Why not?" he grumbled, dropping back to his feet and tossing a glare over his shoulder in Derek's general direction. "He clawed you up first; you owe him a few stripes."

Pheelan rolled his eyes. "I'd kill him like this and you know it."

"And?"

"_Stiles_."

"Fine," he huffed, crossing his arms and pouting out his lower lip. "I'll play nice with the puppies. Stupid softy werewolf."

Phee just grinned wolfishly and mussed his hair roughly until Stiles slapped his hands away. The pack was staring at them uncomfortably now, some of them glaring at Phee through narrowed eyes, but they had both been ready for that, ready for that hatred, even if they hadn't claimed each other. It still bothered him, for more than one reason, but standing here, now, with Pheelan at his back, he thought that he might be able to take it. Stepping back so that he and Phee were side-by-side, standing as equals, he passed over Derek and faced Isaac instead with his feet planted firmly and his shoulders back.

"Beta Lahey," he said, stiffly and formally and ritualistically correct. "As second wolf of the Hale pack, overseers of the Beacon Hills territory, I, Touchstone Stilinksi recently of the O'Rourke pack, request the permission of your Alpha to hunt this region."

Isaac's eyes went wide and he whimpered, leaning back and away, and his confusion and discomfort were painfully obvious. Stiles wanted nothing so much as to hug him then, wrap his arms around the tall, lanky wolf and warm him up with a good glow, but then Derek choked out a disbelieving stutter of his name and Phee was cutting him off with his own part of the speech.

"Beta Lahey," he rumbled, and Isaac jumped at being addressed by the larger wolf. "As second wolf of the Hale pack, overseers of the Beacon Hills territory, I, Omega O'Rourke recently of the O'Rourke pack, request the permission of your Alpha to hunt in this region."

"O'Rourke pack? What… Stiles?" Isaac whined, and Stiles rolled his eyes.

Why he'd expected Derek to have taught the pack the proper protocols for entering another's territory was beyond him.

Beside him Phee growled quietly, his nose scrunched, and Stiles knew that he was picking up the harsh, bitter scent of Stiles' unexpected guilt. It wasn't Derek's fault that he'd been a subpar Alpha five years ago, probably wasn't his fault now. The guy'd gone through a lot of shit, Stiles shouldn't…

"Touchstone."

"Oh God," Stiles groaned, his head dropping down hard until his chin hit his chest. At least in that position he couldn't see Peter's eyes glinting with sudden understanding, and what was no doubt wicked intention, even if he could still hear the gruff, amused chuckling.

"_You_ are a Touchstone…"

"Jesus," Stiles muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Isaac, please?"

The beta whimpered, shifted, looked back and forth between his alpha and his friend, the first unable to look away from the latter to give him any indication of what the verdict might be. And so he did what felt right, and Stiles was strangely proud that his voice didn't shake when he spoke, that his words were almost right.

"Touchstone Stilinski and Omega O'Rourke, as second beta to the Hale pack, overseers of Beacon Hills, and on behalf of our Alpha Derek Hale, we cede permission that you may hunt this territory."

"All right then," Stiles smirked, clapping his hands together. "Stiles isn't possessed. Stiles' dad is _not _a werewolf and is going to be fine. Your alpha's… _performance issues _should resolve themselves within the next few days as will Scott's. I should have the other alpha taken care of by the end of the week, until then, if you see him, remember that he's mine and _back_ the _fuck_ off. Am I forgetting anything?"

"Maybe the fact that you're a frickin' _touchstone_?" Peter muttered, his arms crossed.

"No?" Stiles asked, powering right through. "No. Perfect. Pheelan?" he smiled brightly, looking round to the big blonde who was watching Peter carefully over Stiles' shoulder, "Let's roll."

"Stiles wait!"

There had been a single, solitary beat of silence as he turned and took two steps away from the blue light of the lanterns towards his jeep, a single moment when he felt anger and pain and wolves reaching out for him before the sharp crack of Lydia's voice broke the silence, strong and determined and far closer than he expected it to be. He flinched when he felt her fingers circle around his wrist but he didn't jerk away, just froze beneath her touch, not daring to move or even breathe for fear of what he might do, whether he would haul her into a tight hug and break down sobbing or push her away like he had Derek. She seemed to sense this because her grip loosened, her thumb stroking gently over the tender skin of his inner wrist.

"Stiles please?" she whispered. "Don't… just please talk to me? We could get coffee, or lunch or… I don't care just… Stiles I missed you. Please."

And then his front was breaking, turning back to find her brilliant eyes shimmering, a single tear tracking down her cheek. Reaching up, he cupped her jaw in his palm, her skin warm and smooth and perfect under his fingers, brushed the tear away with his thumb before smiling softly.

"I'd like that, Lyds. Lunch, just you and me. I'll call, ok, I promise. I just… I have to make sure my dad's ok."

"Stiles," she began in a trembling voice, "I'm so…"

"Don't," he snapped, and she pulled away at the harshness in his tone, the care between them shattered as easily as glass. "Don't Lydia." He felt his glow reach out for Phee's, for that looming comfort that was never far away, and took a step backwards towards the wolf. "I'll call you," he repeated.

And then he was turning away, back towards the trail and the one waiting for him, who was watching the reactions of the pack carefully, watching Lydia, always ready, always alert, where Stiles was suddenly bone-weary and ready to collapse. Taking a running start at the wolf, he leapt onto his back and wrapped his legs around Phee's trim waist, easily supported when his hands came up automatically to grab beneath Stiles' knees.

"Carry me," he demanded, kicking his heels against Phee's thighs. "I'll let you pick the music."

"Irish?" he asked, heading into the trees towards the jeep.

"Of course," Stiles replied with a smirk as he was carted away from the pack who stared silently after them. "Flogging Molly or the Dropkick Murphys?"

"Dear God," Pheelan groaned.

"You love my American Celtic punk," Stiles grinned.

"Heathen."


	14. Chapter 14

The pack waited until the last strains of Blood and Whiskey had faded away before they exploded like a supernova. Derek didn't even bother trying to call them back to order; they'd shout themselves hoarse soon enough, unless they realized first that they couldn't understand a word anyone else was saying as they all fought to be heard. No, he just stood, staring off after the jeep's taillights, shocked and scared and sad and guilty all rolled together in a hot, twisting ball that sat in his stomach like melting steel. A shiver rippled down his spine when his uncle stepped in close to his side, staring with him, his arms crossed firmly over his chest.

"An honest-to-god Touchstone," Peter muttered in the dark, and his low, calm voice brought silence over the battling wolves and the dumbstruck banshee faster than any alpha roar might have. "Isn't that a kick in the balls?"

After a minute Derek opened his mouth but nothing came out. Probably for the best; he honestly didn't know what he'd meant to say in the first place.

"Let's get back to the house," the beta murmured, clapping Derek on the shoulder without meeting his gaze. "I'll need the bestiary."

He didn't wait for a response, only took off into the trees without a backwards glance, and Derek just managed to nod to the other wolves, releasing them to follow. Isaac lingered, waiting with him until Lydia and Allison were safely on the ATV and headed out before disappearing from the clearing too. The alpha couldn't break so easily. It took a few minutes, maybe more before he could drag himself away, away from the scent that lingered in the air, the scent that was only just barely Stiles beneath the ash and smoke and static, the heavier, maddening musk of the omega.

_O'Rourke_.

Derek snarled to himself, lifted his lip back from blunt human teeth before turning on the heel of his boot and taking off back towards the Hale House, following the wide trail blazed by his pack. His brain was reeling and he felt sick, nausea and dizziness that refused to disappear as he ran. All he could do was push himself harder, faster, his muscles burning and stretching to the limit and then he was home, to the shiny new house that he'd _made_ into a home, that he'd somehow managed to fill with family that always felt one person shy. He could hear the others inside and he knew he had to enter, knew he had to step through the door and face whatever Peter was about to tell him, but…

Derek felt his feet slow, felt the pressure in his chest build and then he was dropping down on the steps of the porch, his head swimming as he ducked it between his knees, fighting not to toss up what little he'd eaten since he'd learned that Stiles was back. He hadn't felt this conflicted in years, this guilty – he'd worked, worked hard, hell even gone to a therapist to get rid of some of his ghosts, and yes, Stiles had been one of his ghosts. He still was. But now he was real again, not just a painful memory, solid, glaringly bright and loud and colorful and he… couldn't… breathe…

Suddenly he felt his uncle reach out through the pack bond, made all the stronger from shared blood, family ties, and his throat loosened. It was like a rough hand on the back of his neck, stroking down his spine and it was warmth and calm and comfort, and he was finally able to climb back to his feet, push through the heavy oak door and make his way through the first floor. As he passed the main room he caught sight of the pack from the corner of his eye - Erica and Boyd, Scott and Allison, Lydia and the twins - all huddled together, pale and quiet, some of them shaking just a little, some of them obviously holding back tears, and it cut. He wanted to go to them, to slip into the middle of the group where he could touch them all, draw them together where the pain couldn't reach them anymore. Instead he followed his instincts, everything that was telling him he needed his uncle now.

He found him in the small war room at the back of the house, the large weapons safe left open, a laptop and one of three external hard drives on the table beside two heavy leather-bound books. Peter was seated on a high bar stool, already tapping away at the keyboard, and he didn't look up when Derek slipped into the room, only reached down and pulled out the second stool at his side, a silent offer. The younger man collapsed onto it as though his strings were cut, hanging his head so that his chin rested against his chest, his eyes closed against the world. The length of his arm was pressed against Peter's as he typed away, the closeness and the heat of him a small comfort, but it wasn't quite enough and Derek felt a high-pitched whine escape his throat.

He jerked when warm, calloused fingers curled around the nape of his neck before melting under the gentle pressure. There was a time when he would've snapped if Peter had touched him that way, had touched him at all, a time when any trust between them had been so shattered he hadn't thought they'd ever get it back. He had been so sure that everything that made Peter himself had been burned away in the Hale House fire, so sure that the uncle he knew was really gone…

Having him back, even a little bit, was more than he deserved.

Sure, Peter still disappeared sometimes, was still creepy and annoying and holier-than-thou, and it wasn't like Derek hadn't noticed that the clicking of computer keys hadn't slowed in the slightest, but the hand on his neck was a gesture he remembered; simple, off-handed comfort. There was still pain between them and probably always would be, Laura's ghost a vicious wound in both of their hearts, but Peter was _better_, the madness that had burned in him like fire drowned into dull coals as he was surrounded by pack and family, his semi-romance with Lily and his strange but intense friendship with Lydia, and so Derek let his shoulders go lax.

Took the commiseration and the comfort as it was offered, and fought not to break.

**XXX**

Peter didn't think twice about reaching out for his nephew. In the past it wouldn't have even crossed his mind to attempt to comfort him, to do something for someone else, but the blue-eyed beta wasn't quite the same as he had been. Not from before the fire or after. He felt things now somewhere deep in his chest where he suspected his heart was housed, aches and stirrings that he'd not felt for so long that he didn't really know what they meant anymore. It was this house, and the little pack that Derek had drawn together, his own meager contribution the single beta that had started the landslide of bitten teenagers. It was like living in a real den again, living with real family, and it warmed him sometimes when he couldn't sleep and ended up staring at the stars from the middle of some forest he didn't know.

So he recognized now the piteous sort of feeling bubbling round in his stomach when he scented the bitter spirits ache coming off of his nephew and alpha.

Recognized, for the most part, how hard it was for him to see Stiles again because he felt some of it himself.

Giving Derek's neck one last squeeze, he took his hand back and clicked open a new page on his laptop, prepared to start in on his history lesson when Isaac ghosted back into the war room with a heavy mug in his hands, the scent of cardamom, orange, and aster heavy in the air. The beta placed it carefully onto the table, the clunk of ceramic finally bringing Derek's head up, pure misery on his face.

"Thank you Isaac," Peter murmured before flipping open the first of the two tomes in front of him, checking a source and cross referencing the information he'd already guessed the truth of. "Drink up nephew."

The proportions for the tea leaves were ones he'd gotten from a witch several years before, when he'd run off to Oregon to hunt in the mountains and spend a few days forgetting himself, forgetting everything. The additives were carefully measured to help relieve tension and stimulate muscle relaxation, and in a house full of young bitten wolves he found himself brewing pots of tea for more often than he felt was dignified for someone like him. Still, the steam from the mug was hot and fragrant, and both he and Isaac breathed in subtly as Derek lifted the mug and sipped. The young alpha was one of the few who had never tried the tea before, so Peter wasn't surprised by his hesitance, rather what surprised him was how quickly and quietly the young man consented. It was a testament to how shaken he was, how unsettled.

"You should stay," he said evenly as Isaac nodded to Derek and made to leave. "I'm sure the pups are listening but we'll need to do an official pack meet after. Tomorrow."

"I should…"

Both wolves turned to their alpha but he'd trailed off, eyes glazed over with his forearms on the table, palms wrapped around a half empty mug.

"I can do it," Isaac said, reaching over the table to squeeze Derek's shoulder, and neither missed the way the man leaned into the touch. "I'll tell them."

Derek swallowed, opened his mouth again, but once more nothing came out, and he just nodded. Isaac nodded back, his eyes flashing gold in respect, deference, commiseration before he turned back to Peter.

"What am I telling them?" he asked.

A sad sort of smirk touched the edge of Peter's mouth at the complete loss expressed in the question. The lanky blonde was entirely clueless in this aspect and it showed. Sadder still that Derek, who had been born into a large and powerful pack that had held an established territory didn't know either…

Peter shook his head, cleared away the warm, acidic rain of memory and turned the heavy book around for the other wolves to see.

The volume was cracked open two-thirds of the way from the back, an intricate sketch done in rich black ink, filigree thin lines detailing a young man curled in the center of a knot of wolves. The drawing was soft, delicate, and yet there was a palpable strength in the image, each wolf completing a corner of the seven-pointed symmetry that surrounded the man, his chest bare as he reached out to rest gentle hands on thick fur. It was a beautiful sketch, but its power came from the peace that shone through on the wolves' faces, a pure calm and simple happiness that was far stronger than mere paper and ink should be able to project.

Isaac reached out a pale hand to trace slim, trembling fingers over the face of the young man, the spine of a smaller wolf near his feet who had a distinct, puppyish look.

"There are people in this world that were born to run with wolves," Peter began, his voice low and smooth like whiskey. "They're human, still human, but… more. They act as a sort of fulcrum, a lynchpin in center of a pack that stabilizes it the inside out."

"Stiles," Isaac stated, and Peter nodded.

"Yes. I didn't realize before…" He shook his head. He had always known that there was something more to Stiles, some spark that burned in him, struggling to burn brighter. It was one of the reasons that he hadn't bitten the teen when he had rejected his offer of the bite. His wolf had known, recognized even through a haze of madness that the boy would have lost something in the turning, something brighter and stronger than his humanity. Still, if he had understood, if he had realized…

God, the things they might have accomplished if they'd known.

"These touchstones," he continued, "They come into themselves as they transition from child to adult. If they've yet to be claimed by a pack, claimed by…"

Peter cast a glance at his nephew who had gone pale and clammy, some small flare of recognition in his eyes as understanding finally swept through him. He swallowed.

"Claimed by an alpha. Something changes. They change. Maybe pheromones, maybe something else, hell, it really doesn't matter, but they draw you in. They start to pull at the wolves around them, capture their attentions, drive them to distraction."

"Senior year," Isaac breathed, and Peter nodded. "Oh God. That's what… that's what was happening."

"The timing makes sense," Peter answered. "Stiles _is_ a Touchstone, he made that much clear. If it were those side effects the pack was experiencing those last months…"

"Then it's ten times worse than we thought," Derek whispered.

And the mournful howl that ripped out of his chest shook the house.


	15. Chapter 15

After Pheelan carted him to the jeep and cranked up some Dropkick Murphys, Stiles drove back to the hotel with the windows down, singing at the top of his lungs. It was a quick trip, only because he did some significant speeding that went by without comment from the passenger seat. When he killed the engine in the parking lot and dropped down to the pavement, he took a deep, bracing breath of cool night air and turned to face the big blonde wolf, who was giving off tension like the filament-thin wires of a bomb.

"I think that went well," he smiled, and for a second Phee just stared at him like he was crazy. Stiles stared back, silent, one eyebrow arched until the werewolf cracked, laughing loud and rough and full as he shook his head.

"That went _terribly_," he chuckled as they moved up the stairs to their room. "You almost went supernova, _twice_, and you tossed their alpha across the damned hill like he was a rag-doll."

"Hey, no one _died_!" Stiles protested, ducking under Phee's arm as he held the door and slipping out of his jacket and shoes.

"True," Phee consented as he dropped down into the desk chair to unlace his boots. "I guess we should count that as a win."

"Damn straight," Stiles muttered. Tugging off both his shirts together, he paused halfway through, his arms still tangled in the sleeves, biting his lip in consideration.

"What?" Phee asked, following Stiles' lead and shedding his clothes as both of them crossed the floor slowly but steadily towards the open bathroom.

"I don't know," he mumbled, kicking off his jeans while Phee reached into the shower to get the water going. "It just… it feels like nothing's changed, you know?"

"_You _changed, Stiles," Phee said firmly, squeezing the smaller man's shoulders before turning him round to face the mirror over the sink. "Look." He commanded. "Tell me what you see."

Silent seconds past before he spoke.

"I see you."

Pheelan smiled, a little sadly.

"And I see you," he murmured in Stiles' ear. "I see power. More importantly, I see strength." One hand circled round to trace a delicate scar that arced over Stiles' collarbone, left by the steel blade of a rogue hunter. "I see a man that life has demanded much of, and who more than rose to the occasion. You've _made_ yourself Stiles, chosen your own path. When your heart was breaking you took control and did what you had to do to _save yourself_."

Stiles' eyes followed the hand that trailed over his chest in the mirror until it rested over his heart, fingers tracing the delicate script that stenciled two names there.

_Stilinski_.

_O_'_Rourke_.

"I see a man who loves," Phee continued. "I see a man who _protects_ the ones he loves, with _everything_ he can give."

Stiles swallowed, intensely aware of Phee's other hand, which had come up to splay over the left side of his rib cage beneath his arm, where they both knew other names should have shown.

"So they may be the same," Phee said quietly. "And this place may not have changed. But you? _You_ are stronger and brighter and more beautiful than this world has ever seen you. There may be shadows here. But you fucking _shine_ little buddy."

Stiles could count on one hand the number of times that he had truly felt at a loss for words. He was a talker, a blusterer; sarcasm his main defense for so long that he'd never felt like he had the _time_ to shut up. But here he was, in the nicest room in Beacon Hills' one and only crappy motel, hot steam creeping over the glass of the mirror, and he couldn't find the words. Could not find the words to express what that speech had meant to him, the strength he was afforded by the werewolf at his back. Twisting hard in Phee's arms, he threaded his fingers into his curly blonde hair and dragged him down, pouring everything he felt into a mind-melting kiss that couldn't last long enough, pushing every bit of sweetness and gratitude and fondness he had into the gesture, and he thought that in that moment he _did_ love Pheelan O'Rourke.

"Damn," the wolf breathed when they finally broke, broad chest heaving. "Not sure what you were goin' for with that but… damn."

"Well I _was_ going for speechless," Stiles teased, peppering more kisses everywhere he could reach in between words as he pushed Phee backward into the shower. "Guess I'll have to try a little harder."

The water had gone cool again before they climbed back out, loose and sated, dragging on sweatpants and curling together beneath the starchy motel coverlet as tangled together as they could be. Phee's hot, heavy weight was pressing him down into the sheets, one arm slung across his torso as his fingers traced his own name on Stiles' skin again and again, sleepily, reverently. He had been the one to encourage Stiles to get his father's name over his heart, after he had accidently spilled the boy's designs from the bottom of the shoe box one night. They were old drawings, ones he had drafted over and over again all those years before, a howling wolf that would wrap around his hip, sparks of filigree leading upward to his ribcage where the names of each of his pack members would be listed. It was a beautiful design, and Phee had said so, a simple compliment that had led to a panic attack and a lot of tears.

When he'd finally caught his breath Stiles had explained what the tattoo had meant to him; the claiming of the pack as his and he as theirs. He'd meant to gift himself with the tattoo on his eighteenth birthday, had saved for almost a year to pay for the large, intricate piece, had gone so far as to make the appointment even as the wolves whose names he was ready to have needled into his skin began to push him away. But then _it _had happened and they'd slowly left him, and by the time he'd halfway figured out what was going on it was pretty much too late. They'd had _the fight_ and he'd gone home, packed his bags that very night, all thought of marking himself with the names of his pack shattered beyond imagining. Broken, betrayed, he'd still been unable to leave the designs behind.

Phee had acted as a lifeline for him that night, holding him down to the earth in more ways than one. He had looped an arm around Stiles, dragged him close, scented his neck and rumbled away like a damned cat might purr, done everything he could to assure Stiles that he belonged to someone, even if he wasn't mated or claimed. He'd praised Stiles' loyalty, his possessiveness and need for marking, all things important to a wolf, even a lone wolf. It had been his words that reassured Stiles, that made him understand, even more than he already knew, how important it was for him to stay true to himself, his own needs, and he _had_ needed the pain and blood of the needle.

He'd gone to a shop two days later to have his last name marked in a curled, scripting cursive on his left pectoral, his father's name, a mark that protected the one it represented, kept them close.

Pheelan had been shocked stupid when Stiles came back with the O'Rourke family name marked right below his own. His pack's name. _His _name.

"What are you thinking about?" Phee murmured quietly, pulling Stiles out of the past.

"Remembering," he whispered, staring into the dark.

"Bad things?"

A smile touched Stiles face. "Not all," he answered back. Squirming lower into the mattress, he hummed softly and reached into the warm, soft place in his chest that lit him up like firelight.

"Go to sleep," he commanded softly.

The only response he got was a gentle snore.

**XXX**

He woke the next morning wrapped around Pheelan like an octopus, late morning sunlight hot on his back. Eyes still stubbornly closed, he nuzzled into the curve of Phee's neck, knowing that he was scent marking him and not caring. For his part, the sleeping werewolf arced his back and stretched, unconsciously baring his neck that Stiles might have better access, and it made the young man smile mischievously. Planting a kiss behind Phee's ear, Stiles mouthed his way down the muscular cord of his neck before nipping playfully and sucking a dark mark onto the skin there. Pulling back to survey his work, his smug, prideful grin quickly turned to a frown as the perfect smudge of color failed to fade.

"Hey!" he yelped, jabbing Phee in the side with his thumb. "Faker!"

A chuckled rumbled up out of the wolf's chest before he snugged his arms around Stiles' waist and rolled, settling into the cradle of his hips as he braced his elbows against the bed on either side of Stiles' shoulders, fingers tracing the lines of the smaller man's face as he stared reverently down.

"If I'm a faker than you're a sneak," he murmured, thumbs smoothing over Stiles' brows as he cupped his face in his hands. "Taking advantage of a helpless wolf, scenting him, _marking him_…"

Leaning in, he pressed a hard, hot kiss to Stiles' lips, teeth clicking and tongues doing battle for control. When Stiles reached up to card his fingers through Phee's hair, an anticipated move as the man had a certain obsessive fondness for doing so, he caught him easily by the wrists, pressing his hands to the mattress above his head before pulling back from the kiss.

"Who's the helpless one now?" he gasped playfully, punctuating the question with a hot lick to Stiles' earlobe.

The only answer he got was a chuckle, and then suddenly Stiles was humming raggedly, his eyes clenched shut.

_Who's afraid of the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf_...

That wouldn't do.

A growl rumbled through him and he rolled his hips suggestively, pleased when the tune was cut off by a breathy moan. He smirked, quite satisfied with himself, but they didn't have time for much more than another steamy kiss, one he was happy to bestow.

"You know how much I love wearing your mark," he accused against Stiles' lips. "But if you want me to heal it…"

"Don't!" Stiles yipped, his hand flashing up to Phee's chest, wrapped halfway round the curve of his neck where it met his shoulder. Phee could feel his body tense beneath him, heard the pounding of his heartbeat, but when the mark didn't disappear he relaxed, sank back against the bed and ghosted his fingertips around the edge of the mark. "Don't," he murmured.

Phee smiled, and damn if it wasn't like sunlight shining down on him, hot and bright, the sweetly yellow grin that, in combination with his curly blonde locks and tawny fur, had prompted Stiles to nickname him Butterwolf. It was a look Stiles loved seeing on him, a look he loved putting on the wolf's face.

"I like it there," he admitted. "I like seeing you wear it."

"But will you like _them _seeing me wear it?"

He was quiet a minute as he thought over the events of the night before, the things the pack had said, the things _Phee _had said.

"I don't owe them anything," he murmured, reaching up to brush his thumb over Phee's jawline. "Somebody told me once that I was strong. That I made myself and chose my own path. It took me a lot to get there… I don't want to go back."

Phee grinned, dropped one more kiss onto Stiles' lips before rolling off of the bed, hunting up a pair of dark blue jeans and a black button down shirt. Stiles chuckled as he watched from the bed, subtly readjusting himself in his sweats before running his hands roughly through his hair and heaving himself up.

"Dressed to impress?" he asked as he tugged a pair of his own skinny jeans from his duffel bag, pulled on a black V-necked t-shirt.

"I've never met your dad in person," Phee replied simply, fixing his collar. "He's got guns."

Stiles snorted, fished his left boot from beneath the edge of the bed. "He's also laid up in the hospital. He's not gonna be threatening you anytime soon."

Phee rolled his eyes. "Twenty bucks says I get threatened before we even get him home."

Stiles cocked an eyebrow. "You're on," he smirked. "All it'll take is the suggestion of a burger on the way home and he'll be putty in my hands."

"You're underestimating him." Stepping into the bathroom, Phee gelled up his palms before sweeping them through his curls. He watched intently as Stiles pulled on his jacket, checked his pistol before transferring his charm box from his satchel to his pocket. "You want to take your stuff now? It'll be a smoother ride for your dad in the SUV…"

Stiles' mouth quirked to one side, then he shrugged.

"Let's just check out," he said, beginning to gather up his scattered dirty clothes and stuffing them back into his bag. "I'll drive my dad and our stuff if you'll take the jeep. I'm gonna need to keep an eye on him for a while, watch for a relapse…"

"He'll be fine," Phee promised. "And he'll be happy to have you there, you know that."

"I know," Stiles sighed. Zipping his bag closed again, he turned to face Phee with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. "Let's go get him home."


	16. Chapter 16

They pulled into the hospital lot less than twenty minutes later, excellent time considering Stiles had double and triple checked the room to make sure he had all his stuff before Phee finally got them paid for and on the road. They parked side by side outside the bay doors, met at the tailgate of Stiles' jeep when he suddenly found his feet stuck to the pavement. His dad would be awake this time, would be seeing him face to face for the first time in five years, and even though he had always assured Stiles by phone or video chat that he did understand, Stiles was still scared. Scared, that even though his dad still loved him, that there might be some sadness there, some disappointment.

A warm hand gripped the back of his neck, squeezed gently in a gesture he recognized. Wolves often gripped their pups by the neck, to carry them back to the safety of the den. It was warmth and reassurance and love, and Stiles' nature reacted to the touch the same way a wolf pup would. The tension immediately drained from his shoulders and he breathed out, leaning back into Phee's chest as his head lolled to the side, baring his neck. The werewolf automatically nuzzled in, rubbing the side of his face against Stiles until his pale skin pinked from Phee's rough stubble.

"Come on," he murmured against Stiles' ear. "You've got this."

Stiles swallowed, nodded. Pushing through the doorway, he headed towards the front desk, stalling. He almost changed his mind when he saw Melissa McCall sitting behind the computer, taking notes with a ballpoint pen, but the hospital wouldn't discharge his dad if there wasn't someone there to drive him home, so he didn't have much of a choice. He moved quietly to the desk, he placed his hands on the counter and lightly cleared his throat.

"Yes, can I…"

Her words tailed off as she finally looked up, eyes wide as though she didn't believe who was standing in front of her. Her mouth fell open with a gasp and she lifted a trembling fingers to cover it.

"Stiles?" she tremored.

All it took was a sad little half smile on his part to have her up and around the counter, wrapping him in a crushing hug. He could feel her tears hot against his neck and it was enough to move him from tentative back patting until he'd melted against her, sniffing back his own tears.

"Oh sweetie," she murmured, pulling back. "Let me…" She chuckled, took him by the shoulders as she ran tear filled eyes over his face. "Just let me look at you." She rubbed a thumb down over the line of his moustache as though it were dirt she could rub away, smoothed her hands over the wide lapels of his jacket, patting over his heart. "It's so good to see you sweetheart," she said finally. "Things haven't been nearly as exciting without you."

Stiles smirked a little, remembering all the times he'd tumbled through Scott's window only to be confronted with a bat-wielding Melissa.

"I've missed you too," he murmured, pulling her back in again for another short hug. "I didn't mean to… I just…"

"It's all right sweetie," she said quietly, shaking her head. "We don't have to do this now. Scott never said why you left but… your dad told me it was something you needed to do."

"Yeah," he murmured, glancing back over his shoulder at Phee who was waiting a respectful three paces back. "I think it was."

"Who's this?" Melissa asked, straightening up as she followed Stiles' gaze.

"Pheelan O'Rourke, miss," the werewolf smiled, stepping forward as he put on his most suave and charming smile. "It's nice to meet you. Stiles has said lovely things."

"Hmm."

Stiles smirked at Melissa's suspicious look, her arms crossed and an eyebrow cocked. It was a look he remembered well.

"Well I can't exactly say the same," she sniffed, shooting Stiles a glare, "But if you're the one who brought Stiles back home…"

"Well it _was_ my family jet that flew us here," he laughed.

"Family jet huh?" she remarked in surprise. "Good enough. I guess now we'll just have to work on keeping you."

Stiles wasn't unaffected by the phrasing, but Phee just smiled, running a hand smoothly through his hair. "Well I can't make any promises," he grinned, "But we'll be here as long as it takes to get Stiles' father back on his feet."

"Oh, God! Stiles, your dad!"

"Relax Melissa," Stiles chuckled, touched by her sudden panic at the obvious oversight she'd made. "We dropped by yesterday but he was asleep. He seems to be doing well?"

"Oh. Um…" The nurse cast an anxious glance over at Phee, but he just smiled and flashed his eyes. "Oh. _Oh_. All right then." Taking the sleeve of Stiles jacket, she pulled him over to a secluded corner and leaned in close. "Stiles, sweetie, your dad was…"

"It's all right," he reassured her. "He got bit, I know."

"But how did you…"

Stiles shifted uncomfortably on his feet and Melissa quickly moved on, all professionalism. "Derek brought him in," she began. "He wasn't well. He'd lost a lot of blood, which we replaced, but he was still running a fever and he stayed unconscious. He was improving, but yesterday he had a setback…"

"That was me actually," Stiles volunteered shamefacedly. "It was an alpha that bit him…"

Melissa's eyes went wide and she hissed in a breath of surprise.

"It's ok," he soothed, touching her arm. "I… I fixed it. He won't… he won't change."

"How did you…"

Again, Stiles looked away, uncomfortable, pained at the thought of sharing himself this way.

"Ok," she sighed, "Another thing that can wait for another time." Smiling up at him, she returned the arm squeeze. "He's doing fine Stiles. I was going to drive him home after my shift, but this is… this is so much better." Without warning, she launched in for another hug. "It's so much better. He was awake early this morning. Go. Go see him."

"Thanks, Melissa," he murmured, and as he turned away he caught her wiping a tear from her cheek.

"See?" Pheelan murmured at his side. "You got this."

When they got to the door of his father's room Stiles paused, hand on the knob as he tried to catch his breath.

"Want me to go in with you?" Phee asked quietly.

"I think… I think maybe I should go alone."

"Whatever you need little buddy," the wolf replied. "Think I'll go find the caf, hunt up some tea."

Stiles could only nod silently. Pressing a kiss to his cheek, Phee clapped him on the shoulder and sauntered off, intentional in his casualty. Taking a bracing breath, Stiles straightened his spine and pushed through the doorway.

His father was sitting up against the pillows, watching a baseball game on the tiny television mounted on the wall near the ceiling. He was awake, alert even if he looked a little weary, and it was intensely relieving to the young man who was still afraid.

"I told you Melissa, I'm fine," his father huffed without turning towards the doorway. "I'd be better if you'd let me sign myself outta here."

"Your sway as a Sheriff must be slipping," Stiles smiled. "She let _me _sign you out."

The Sheriff's head turned so fast Stiles was surprised he didn't wrench his neck, and the man went uncomfortably pale, his face full of the fear of hope.

"Stiles?" he breathed.

"Hey Dad," he whispered.

For a second he shifted on his feet, staring down at his boots, the picture of a young son afraid and ashamed in the face of his father's disappointment, but it didn't last. The Sheriff opened his arms and that was all it took to have Stiles across the floor in a blink, collapsing against him, and then they were both sobbing and talking over each other and hugging as tightly as his dad's bandaged arm would allow.

"I'm sorry Dad. I'm so sorry," Stiles sobbed against his father's neck, his body shaking with the years of longing and aching love. "I never wanted…"

"Easy, son, easy," his dad murmured against him, holding him close and backing him down from the hyperventilating he was trying for. "This wasn't your fault. I'm ok, Mel says I'm ok."

"I know, I know, I just…"

Sucking in a hard breath, Stiles pulled back and dragged a chair up to the side of the bed, dropping into it without relinquishing his grip on his father's hand as he swiped tears roughly from his face.

"I never wanted you to get hurt," he heaved raggedly. "I thought… I mean, I… I _trusted_ them. I thought they'd keep you safe."

"It wasn't their fault Stiles," John murmured, stroking his son's hair. "I chose to try and help, even though Derek told me he had it under control. I _wanted_ to help."

"Dad, you got _bit_," Stiles choked. "By an _alpha_. If I'd gotten here any later than I did…"

"What…"

Stiles sighed, rubbed his hands over his face hard. "You know what I can do," he said quietly. "What I am." John nodded. It had taken a long time, years, but Stiles had finally told his dad what he was, the things that he was learning he could do. Stiles weekly phone call was the only reason the Sheriff had never put out an APB on his son. "I came in yesterday, worked my mojo."

"So I won't be…"

"Getting grey in the muzzle?" Stiles smirked, cocking an eyebrow. "No."

He didn't miss the way the Sheriff's shoulders slumped, the way the tension bled out of him. Grabbing the back of Stiles' neck, he dragged him in close, pressed their foreheads together.

"Thank you," he murmured. "You know I didn't want…"

"I know," Stiles answered. A year after he'd left, when the wolves had finally realized he wasn't coming back, they had offered his dad a place in the pack, and the only thing that had kept the pain of that from being completely overwhelming was the fact that the Sheriff had declined. Yes, they had been offering him protection, no doubt doing it for Stiles, but that his dad should be the one offered what he'd wanted so badly… it cut.

Nervously, awkwardly, Stiles cleared his throat and pulled back, reached into his jacket pocket for the small wooden box that held the charm he'd cut for his father. Turning it in his hand, he opened his mouth but closed it again without saying anything, just offered it in silence. His father took it the same way, with silence and a certain amount of reverence that Stiles wasn't sure was warranted. Opening the box, he could almost feel the quickening of his father's heart, could almost hear it as he reached out tentative fingertips and stroked the shining metal dog tags that rested on the crushed silk inside.

There were two, as was customary, thin, polished steel that he'd poured so much love and strength into that it had left him drained for days. He'd cut the name _Stilinski_ into the first, a pentagram into the other, the same intricate knot he'd woven for Phee. He'd begun them months ago, when a strange foreboding had begun to build in the shadows at the back of his mind, and he had intended to mail them in time for his father's birthday, but it was evident that the spark in him knew better, knew the wards would be needed sooner rather than later.

His father pulled them out of the box, let them hang from the fine chain where the light caught on the links, glinting like diamonds might.

"These are more than just shiny, aren't they?" he asked quietly, but it was obvious that he already knew the answer.

Stiles could only nod, his throat tight as he watched his father slip the chain over his head, drop the tags onto his bare chest where his fingers traced them lightly, and then he was reaching out and gripping Stiles fingers tightly, his eyes wet.

"It's good to see you son," John said gruffly, his voice tight. "Good to have you home."

"Not quite home," Stiles countered with a gentle smile. "Ready to get out of here?"

"Oh thank God," John groaned, and the mood in the small room lightened immensely. "I was afraid you were gonna have me stay another day. The food here is even worse than all that veggie stuff you've bribed this damned town into feeding me, and the coffee's worse than that."

"The man doesn't lie," Both Stilinskis jumped and turned to the door where Phee had slipped in, two paper cups of coffee in his hands. "Never had worse." Stepping up to the bed, he handed one across to Stiles and placed the other on the swinging table at the Sheriff's side. "It's nice to finally meet you sir."

John took Phee's proffered hand and shook it firmly, eyeing him up and down.

"So this is the wolf that's kept you away for so long," he considered, shooting Stiles a glare before he let go of Phee's hand. "I have to warn you son," he said in his Sheriff's voice, "I just got him back. If you're planning on keeping him we may have a problem."

"Daaaaaaad," Stiles whined, walking over to the cupboard and pulling out the sweats and the Beacon Hills PD t-shirt one of the deputies must have brought in. "We're moving in till you're at least fully recovered. You'll be sick of me forcing broccoli on you before you know it. Besides," he smirked, shooting Pheelan a wink over his shoulder, "He may look like a teddy bear but my wolf's got game."

"And I've got wolfsbane bullets," John replied flatly, his eyes narrowed.

"Aw, dammit," Stiles grumbled.

Phee barked a laugh, made gimme motions with one hand until Stiles pulled out his wallet and forked over a twenty.

"Looks like dinner's on you tonight, little buddy," he grinned. "Sheriff? Steaks?"

"Oh I like you," John smiled. "I think we're gonna get along just fine."

Stiles rolled his eyes, gave Phee a push. "Go, go!" he smirked. "Shameless, buying my father's love with steaks. Pick me up some star anise all right, I'll need it for the location spell. We'll meet you back at the house, you can find it right?"

"Yes, Stiles, I can find it," Phee smiled. "And I can find the grocery too, this town isn't that big. I'll see you back at the house."

Stiles could see the hesitance on the wolf's face, so he dragged him down by the neck and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips, felt them curve in a smile beneath his mouth.

"See you," he murmured.

Phee pulled back, nodded to the Sheriff, and then he was gone out the door.

"Friends huh?" his father asked when Stiles finally turned around, and his something tickled at his stomach.

"Yeah," he muttered, his eyes on the wall but his gaze far away. "Friends." Picking up his dad's t-shirt from the foot of the bed, he moved to help him pull it on over his bandaged arm. "Let's go home huh?"


	17. Chapter 17

_Stiles stormed into Derek's loft, slamming the rolling door back and striding straight up to the alpha before planting both hands on his chest and shoving as hard as he could. The wolf's eyes flashed red as he rocked back on his heels, but he didn't go any farther, the human's strength not enough to move him._

_"__What the hell man?" Stiles shouted, shoving him again, pointless slapping at the alpha's broad shoulders. "No major monster this month so you just shut me out?!"_

_"__Woah, Stiles, back up!" Scott yelped, trying to grab him by the forearm and pull him back, but Stiles just shook him off. The rest of the pack, all of them except for Lydia who was away that weekend, had jumped to their feet when he'd come flying in, varying degrees of shock and shame and guilt written all over their faces._

_"__Get the hell off me Scott," Stiles snarled, ripping away from his friend's pawing hands. "You've been avoiding me for weeks, all of you, so just keep your frickin' hands off me!"_

_Turning back to Derek, he stabbed a finger in his face, anger and hurt coming off of him in painful waves. "You're gonna tell me what the hell's going on right now, dammit!" he bit out._

_"__What do you think is going on Stiles?" Derek asked flatly, one eyebrow arching up sardonically as he slowly crossed his arms, the picture of defiant nonchalance._

_"__You tell me you son of a bitch! You've called three pack meetings behind my back, you haven't even talked to me since I gave Peter the rest of the bestiary! Now the pack's ignoring me and I find out you told them to!"_

_Derek didn't even bother to respond, instead showing his teeth over Stiles' shoulder at Scott, who shrank back beneath his glare._

_"__I can't believe this," Stiles breathed, backing away as fear and betrayal and incredulity crashed through him. Turning in a panicked circle as his heart began to thunder in his chest, he turned his eyes on each of the wolves in turn and none of them could hold his gaze. Even Allison had blushed and looked to the floor. Peter was staring at Derek and shaking his head with arms crossed but didn't say anything, and Stiles turned back to the alpha with his heart in his throat and all of his pain and panic in his eyes._

_"__Nothing to say Sourwolf?" he snarled between gritted teeth, but his voice was tight. "What, am I only good enough to be your research bitch now? Huh?!"_

_Again Derek stayed silent, just staring back at him dully as though Stiles weren't worth the air it would take to answer._

_He could feel the world beginning to crumble beneath his feet, and even though it had been building for a while, it still felt like he was dying._

_"__I've saved you!" he screamed, his calm finally cracking as he threw his arms out to his sides, a gesture that couldn't possibly encompass the explosion that was going on inside of him. "I've saved you! I've saved all of you! We're family, we're pack!"_

_Spinning harshly on his heel he faced the betas down again, Erica and Boyd, Peter and Isaac, Allison and Scott, and he could feel tears burning hot on his cheeks._

_"__We're pock!" he snarled again. "We're…" Swallowing hard, he turned to face Scott, his oldest friend, his brother, the one who'd been there since the beginning. "God we're friends. And just because he says so you stop hanging out with me? You abandon me?"_

_"__Stiles," Scott whimpered, turning on his puppy eyes, and for the very first time he was too angry to be affected. "I get that you're mad, ok. But I'm not abandoning you. We're not abandoning you. But you're… you're human man. You're not…"_

_"__Not what?" Stiles hissed, showing his own teeth, and Scott paled._

_"__You're safer at home," he murmured finally, dropping his head._

_Stiles laughed, harsh and ugly, and Scott flinched._

_"__You're really gonna try to make this about me being safe?" he asked, his eyes burning and his heart breaking. "That's really what you're going with?"_

_Turning on Derek, he stared at the wolf with shaking hands._

_"__You doing this for me Derek?" he sneered quietly. "Keep me safe?"_

_For a second the alpha just stared back, dark and silent, then he dropped his arms and turned his back on the teen to walk away._

_"__Go home Stiles," he said._

**XXX**

Derek woke up in a cold sweat, gasping for breath as he strained against the bondage of his twisted sheets. It took him a minute to shake off the nightmare memory, to realize that he was in his own bed in his own house and that he was alone in his room. Slumping back against the mattress, his body shook with the effort of reigning in his breathing, of bringing his heartbeat back down to its normal steady pace. Squeezing his eyes shut he tried to calm down but it was hard, all the vicious, slicing emotions of that day and the months that followed suddenly just as cutting and painful as they'd first been, wreaking havoc on his mind.

"Fuck," he breathed, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes until he saw sparks.

It had taken him months to pick up all the pieces he'd broken into after what had happened Stiles senior year, after what he'd caused to happen. It made more sense now, after what Peter had told him the night before, the whole thing falling into place in a horrible, macabre sort of story that made him sick to his stomach. Seeing him again, being close enough to smell him, touch him… God, he could feel himself crumbling.

At the time he'd been afraid, he could admit that now. Afraid of how close he was getting to Stiles, how important the young teen was in his life. And not just for research like he'd accused that terrible night in the loft, not just for his ability to wield the mountain ash. No, he'd been so much more than that, an integral part to their planning, a laugh when things got too heavy, a rock when they got too hard. And it had scared him. He could see his pack slowly gravitating towards the young man, could feel his own wolf doing the same, and he'd panicked, unsure what was happening and why, his past leaping forward with bared teeth to suggest the all the worst of the possible outcomes. Stiles had become a distraction to them, drawing on them in a way that put them all at risk, especially in a fight, and as alpha Derek felt the effects exponentially more than his pack, taking on their emotions and their fears with his own. Anxious, still unsettled in his own skin, he could feel something stirring and it all focused on Stiles, and so he had slowly withdrawn from the boy, instructing the pack to do the same.

He'd never intended it to go as far as it had. He'd only meant to wait for this next storm to pass, for Stiles to stop whatever it was he'd been doing and let them all go from whatever chains he'd somehow wrapped around them. At the time he had felt stifled, out of control of his own wolf, and he could admit now that there _had_ been some resentment in him, that a part of him _had _blamed Stiles. He'd whipped himself for a long time for that. It was true that his uneasiness was reflected in the betas, that they too had sensed something strange when the spastic teen was around, but they'd all taken their cues from him, withdrawing from Stiles and leaving him alone and confused and hurt, and then it had all finally come to a crescendo and Stiles had confronted them in the loft and Derek had had his chance, his chance to open up with the pack about what was happening and how they could fix it, and instead he had frozen up, too afraid of his own fears and feelings to do anything more than send Stiles home.

He'd run from them in tears and Derek had held the pack back, hoping to let Stiles cool down before any of them went after him, and that had perhaps been his biggest mistake. Scott had gone to the Stilinski house the next day only to find it empty, and it wasn't until the night after that that they finally caught up with the Sheriff. The man had looked at them with such sadness and disappointment that Derek had almost been brought to his knees, and all he would say was that he had put Stiles on a plane that morning. He wouldn't say where, or how long his son would be gone, wouldn't say anything more than that, and the pack had run from the police station to Stiles' house in panic and disarray. His room had been left open, no ash barring the windows, but his clothes had been gone, a picture of his mom and his pillow, and they knew he'd really left.

The howling had shaken the woods that night, the Preserve ringing with pain and fear.

They'd been relentless after that, hounding the Sheriff for weeks but the man had never broken, going so far as to threaten them with restraining orders and Argent munitions when he came home to find them waiting on his steps. It was months before they gave up, months before they realized that Stiles just wasn't coming back, wasn't going to call or write or contact them at all, and it was then that he realized he needed to fix what he'd broken. The pack was disintegrating in the face of losing the teen, Peter reverting to suspicious and volatile ways, Scott becoming droopy and sullen, Isaac flinching whenever someone reached out for him and waking up each night screaming, ice cold to the touch. It had been his fault, most entirely his fault, and more importantly than that they were his responsibility. Born to it or not, meant for it or not, he was the alpha of Beacon Hills, and his pack was suffering.

So he had done the best he could, leveling what was left of his family home and working side by side with his still half-crazy uncle to draft up new plans from memory, recreating the open, sun-drenched rooms and grand staircases he'd run through as a pup, filled with the warmth and scent and sounds of pack. He'd paid well to have the job done fast and to have it furnished with enough beds and couches and armchairs to satisfy a king. He and Isaac had moved in immediately and he had wasted no time in laying down the law; every member would be present twice a week for pack dinner and Saturdays would be spent on morning training and afternoon bonding time. He'd been determined to pull them back together by their battered heartstrings if it killed him, and slowly but surely he'd succeeded - Peter had moved in and slowly begun to settle back into his own re-animated skin, Erica and Boyd following quickly after, and while Scott and Allison had found their own apartment, they followed the alpha's law and were present at the house more often than not.

For her part Lydia had kicked both Derek and Scott where it counted when she'd gotten back to Beacon Hills and discovered what had happened, and she was the only one that the Sheriff would pass on a message for. She never got a response but he assured her that Stiles had received the memo, and she was the only one he would reassure of Stiles relative well-being. In the man's defense, had he refused, she could have tracked Stiles down herself, but the second hand communication, few and far between as it was, was enough that she could respect the teens wishes. In the five years he had been gone the Banshee had never caved either, never passed on a message for the pack and never relayed anything that may have passed between herself and the Sheriff. It was weeks before she would speak to any of them again, months more before she stopped looking at them all with venom in her eyes, but eventually she too had fallen into the close-knit little world Derek had managed to create.

It was real after that.

Life without Stiles.

Erica and Boyd bought a mechanic's shop and turned a nice profit for the pack, and Isaac had gotten a degree in psychology. Lydia too had gotten a degree, and now worked out of an especially nice apartment on the edge of town doing something with chemical engineering. Scott and Allison had moved in together after Scott became Deaton's vet tech, the huntress going into the new family business with her father teaching weapons awareness and safety classes. Isaac had found Violet and gotten engaged, Lily had followed and somehow manages to soothe the last of the fire that burned in Peter's mind. Weekends became a pack affair, Saturday evening puppy piles spilling over into Sunday morning breakfasts and runs through the Preserve. Full moons too were Godsend again, the Banshee and the huntress chasing the wolves through the forest on ATV's as the betas romped and sang around them.

Stiles leaving had been perhaps the single most destructive thing to happen to them as a pack, another deep scar on Derek's psyche, and yet it had brought them closer together, brought him more peace than he had ever hoped to know again.

Nauseas with that knowledge Derek rolled out of bed, wobbled into the attached bath to splash cold water on his face. Gazing into the mirror above the sink, he flinched at the sight of his own muddy, burgundy-colored eyes, his true nature unable to break through. He felt light-headed, weak, unable to access his wolf, and that scared him. He couldn't deal like this, not with Stiles coming back, not with his own emotions, and certainly not with any threat that might ride in. This wasn't right, this wasn't…

"Breathe nephew," Peter's voice sounded in his ear, his hand hard on the back of Derek's neck. His breath was catching in his throat, the bathroom tile cutting into his knees through the thin cotton of his sweats.

"I can't do this," he gasped, clawing at his throat. "Peter, I can't… I can't do this! I can't _be_ this!"

"Be what Derek?" Peter demanded, claws pricking Derek's skin as they grew from his fingertips.

"This," he snarled, showing his teeth. "I can't… I can't not be a wolf! I can't…"

"You need to breathe!" Peter growled, shoving his head back down between his knees as Derek rolled and tried to rise to his feet. "Really Derek, this is just undignified. Stiles said the effects would wear off in a few days; surely you can handle that."

Derek only snarled, keeping up a low, rumbling growl as he fought weekly against his uncle's hold, an angry, recalcitrant pup who couldn't understand why he wasn't as strong or as fierce as his elders. Peter sighed, rolled his eyes in a manner that suggested he felt quite put out by the whole mess before hauling Derek to his feet. Dragging him back to the bed he'd only just vacated, he shoved him down onto the mattress before kneeling at his side and holding him down with one clawed hand to his chest.

"Do you trust me?" he asked with a smirk, his free hand moving to encircle Derek's wrist.

The alpha sneered, baring his teeth. "Just do it!" he snarled, raising his head off the pillow.

Peter's face twisted into a wicked smile, and with one deft twist, he snapped his nephew's arm.

The scream that rang through the house was entirely human.


	18. Chapter 18

"Ahh, now _this _is better," John groaned, sinking down into the same old over-stuffed armchair that had held pride of place in the living room since Stiles was in middle school.

He couldn't help a smile at the sight of his father's socked feet kicked up on the footrest. It was a sight he'd seen a thousand times, a sight he'd missed. Simple. Homey. He'd managed to get across the threshold into the house without much of a freak out, but only because he had one hand on his dad's elbow and was guiding him from the SUV to his chair despite manifold protests. It was the scent of the house more than anything that hit him in the face like a brick, his senses enhanced just enough to pick apart the smell that had always just been _home_; linen and wood smoke and Hoppes No. 9, and somehow, impossibly, the lingering scent of his mother's perfume.

He was silent as he walked slowly around the edges of the room, his father's eyes hot on the back of his neck as he trailed his fingers over the picture frames on the walls, the knickknacks on the shelves. Nothing had changed in the five years he'd been gone, not the carpet or the paint or the furniture, or the cracked pane of glass in the bottom of the front window where he'd overshot a lacrosse ball. It was still home, and it wasn't, and he felt like a perfect stranger here even if he felt like he fit right in, a puzzle piece that slotted perfectly into place. Leaving his father comfortable and drowsy in his chair, he wandered the lower floor of the house, peering into the bathroom and the mudroom in the back where the dinosaur of a washer and dryer pair was still housed, poking his head into the dusty, unused guestroom. He couldn't bring himself to go upstairs, not to explore his dad's room or his office, his own room that he didn't doubt was practically a shrine to his former self, at least not alone.

He was standing at the bottom of the stairs gazing up when he heard a tap on the door, rolled his eyes at the thought of Phee knocking, but he quickly forgave when he opened the door to find the werewolf laden down with a massive number of plastic grocery bags. Taking an armful for himself, he ushered him past the living room into the kitchen, the only room he felt entirely comfortable in now, before dumping the load onto the counter.

"Figured he'd be running low on the good stuff," Phee huffed, placing his significantly larger number of bags onto the counter as well. "It's been a few days, perishables might be…"

"Perished?" Stiles grinned, opening the fridge. Pulling out a half full carton of clumpy milk, he headed for the sink. "Eww."

Phee wrinkled his nose before diving into the bags, pulling out a small bottle and tossing it in Stiles' direction. "All they had was anise oil," he said. "Got some of that."

"Mmm, balsamic vinegar too," Stiles smiled, pulling out the larger liter bottle from a bag.

" 'Course. Got a bunch of your chef-y stuff."

"Trying to butter me up Butterwolf?" he asked, before pulling out a case of dark beer and a bag of pretzels. "Or my father?"

Phee just smirked. "Finish putting stuff away," he ordered, nodding his chin at the rest of the bags before hunting through the kitchen drawers and coming up with a knife and a cutting board. "I'll start dinner, yeah?"

After that it was just quiet, and it was nice working side by side with Pheelan in the kitchen, his father snoring lightly in the next room. It felt good, felt right, and Stiles wondered if he had been missing this feeling all along and just didn't know it. He watched Phee's hands as he prepped the steaks with cracked pepper and crushed garlic, deft fingers slicing zucchini and butternut squash into a tinfoil packet with lemon and red onion and potato. For all Stiles liked to be king of the kitchen, Pheelan did a damn fine job himself, and was far better on the grill than Stiles could ever hope to be. The cracking hiss of a beer tab being pulled woke his father as easily as alarm bells, and all three men moved out onto the small patio to sit while Pheelan started cooking, wielding barbecue tongs with a ridiculous degree of finesse.

Despite the recent snow the weather had warmed significantly, a pleasant breeze rushing through the trees around the back yard, and Stiles and his father lazed in deck chairs at the edge of the lawn, talking about anything and everything except the pack which was carefully avoided, soaking in each other's company, just enjoying sitting close and quiet. Every once in a while Phee would chime in, adding to a story and making the Sheriff shake with laughter, usually at his Stiles' expense, but mostly he just listened, a gentle smile on his face as he watched the father and son together.

Dinner was a pleasant affair, effusive compliments on the food made by Stiles' dad once the threat of the veggies had been proved unfounded. They spent the meal telling stories about their travels around Europe and Western Asia, the two short vacations they'd taken in Thailand and the islands of the Cyclades. There were jokes and laughter, stories and reminiscing, and through it all neither the wolf nor the Sheriff could keep from touching the young man between them. It was almost funny to him now, after going unwanted all through high school, and then being rejected by pack, that he could exude such a dark charisma, that he could draw people in so easily without even trying.

This though, this was different.

This was love, affection, missing someone for so long and so hard that all you wanted was that skin on skin reassurance that they were there. On his left Phee's knee pressed against his thigh beneath the deck table, on his right the Sheriff sat close, their shoulders and forearms constantly bumping. It was close and warm and _home_, and Stiles melted with it, becoming more and more relaxed as evening came on and the day drew to an end. He could feel his light flickering in his fingertips, rippling just beneath his skin, and although his dad had never seen it in person before, he decided not to hold back tonight.

"Sure is a hell of a thing," John murmured as the low amber haze began to light Stiles up from the inside out. "Damned impressive son."

Stiles smiled, climbed to his feet and stretched. "Want to see something even cooler?" he asked.

"Location spell?" Phee queried, collecting the empty beer bottles and stacking the dirty dishes onto the grilling platter to be carried inside.

"Might as well," Stiles shrugged, accepting the salt and pepper shakers and a bottle of steak sauce. "Gonna need a map though."

"County map good enough?" John asked as he held the back door with his good arm, waiting for Stiles and Phee to pass inside before throwing the deadbolt.

"Better make it a state map," Stiles replied, starting to seal up the leftovers as Phee ran water for the dishes. His dad nodded and disappeared into the living room, and by the time he came back Stiles had found a steel mixing bowl and retrieved his leather satchel from the front hall. He'd left his trunk in the back of the SUV, but he'd hauled in both his and Phee's duffels, and had everything he needed at hand to locate the alpha who'd bitten his father.

"Spread that out on the table?" he asked, and his dad nodded, flicking on the dining room light and smoothing the map over the table.

Stiles placed his bag on one of the dining room chairs, shrugged out of his jacket and folded it neatly over the back. The Sheriff's eyes lit on the pistol in his shoulder holster but made no comment, and Stiles thought he saw some amount of pride in the man's eyes when he carefully drew the gun and unloaded it, placed the secured weapon back into its holster and set it gently on the table. There weren't a lot of unspoken rules in the Stilinski household, most had to be laid down explicitly if Stiles were to be expected to follow them, but he'd grown up watching the Sheriff handle firearms, knew the respect with which they were to be treated, and he knew some small pride himself that his father had raised him to understand the power of taking a gun into his hands. Had raised him right.

Pheelan had appeared silently at his side, taken the thick white candles from his hands and placed them at the four corners of the table, lit them with Stiles' silver Zippo before stepping back and leaning against the wall. He was the picture of relaxed calm, arms and ankles crossed easily, but his eyes were gold, always alert. Stiles' dad seemed to take his cue from that, pulling a chair back from the table and sitting down, watching with intense interest. Taking a small, crushed-velvet bag from an inner pocket of the satchel, Stiles emptied out five small, misshapen pearls into the metal bowl, carefully counted in five drops of the oil of anise. Muttering a few words under his breath he rolled the bowl from side to side in his hands, coating the pearls with the oil before spilling them out onto the map.

"What's wrong?" Phee asked when Stiles' mouth twisted in a frown, setting the bowl aside on the floor near his feet.

"He's not in Beacon Hills anymore," Stiles sneered, waving his hand over the map. "Not even close."

Both Phee and the Sheriff leaned in to look, eyes on the areas of the map that Stiles had indicated. Beacon Hills was printed near the lower left edge of the map in bold, a single pearl resting just above it, but the other four were scattered in a jagged line several inches higher, in a cluster near the inner north side of the state.

"So this shows where he was?" John asked, pointing at the pearl resting over their town. "What about the other four?"

"Some where he was, some where he will be," Stiles murmured, stroking his lower lip with a thumb as he contemplated the map.

"How do you know which is which?"

Stiles chuckled lightly, tossed his dad a smirk. "You don't," he replied. "Not the greatest system. This is the cool part though."

Reaching out with his right hand, Stiles held it palm down over the map, closed his eyes and breathed out. Around the tables the candles flickered, his own glow sparking in the cup of his hand, and he felt the pull of the charm that his father wore round his neck. The Sheriff must have felt it too, possibly felt the heat of it as Phee had, because his fingers went to the tags and twisted in the chain as he watched, his eyes trained on his son.

"Show me," he murmured, drawing on all of the deep-seated protective feelings his heart held for his dad that were anchored powerfully in his chest.

The power in him jumped and his hand snapped down onto the map like it had been magnetized, fingers caging the pearl closest to the Oregon-Nevada border, his short nails biting into the paper of the map.

"That's the one," he muttered, opening his eyes. "Shit."

"What?" John asked, staring at the pearl between Stiles fingers, "He's there?"

"Yes."

"Stiles, that's… that's incredible," he breathed, dumbstruck. "You be a credit to the force kid, and that's not something I thought I'd ever say."

"Thanks dad," Stiles smiled wearily. "But it doesn't exactly work like that. I couldn't find random criminals, or… kidnap-ees. Well I probably could…"

"But it would probably kill you," Phee deadpanned.

Stiles laughed. "Probably. No, there's gotta be a connection, gotta be something meaningful there. A reason that I need to find them, me specifically."

"So now what?" his dad asked, and his eyes darted towards the gun at the edge of the table.

"Not sure," Stiles admitted, sighing as he rubbed his temples and sank into a chair of his own.

Phee stepped behind him, grabbed an ink pen from the coffee mug on the counter and circled the pearl that Stiles had caught up before pinching out the candle flames and gathering everything up to be washed free of the anise.

"You should call the Argents," he said and Stiles frowned, leaning away from the hand the werewolf dropped onto his shoulder.

Sensing the beginnings of an old argument, the Sheriff climbed to his feet, yawning in exaggeration. "I'm headed to bed boys," he stated smoothly, scratching at the edge of the bandages on his neck and shoulder. "Pheelan, thanks for the steak. Stiles…" Reaching down, he pulled Stiles' head against his ribs, stroked his hair. "I love you son. I'll see you in the morning."

"Love you dad," he murmured after him, watching as his father climbed the stairs and didn't speak until he heard the bedroom door click closed above them.

"You know I wanted to deal with this myself," he said quietly, refusing to look at the werewolf who stood behind him. "You know why it was important to me."

"Yes," Phee answered simply, and the short, succinct answer had annoyance flaring in his eyes.

"Then why the _hell_ are you so ready to pass it off to the god damned werewolf hunters?" he hissed, whipping around on his chair to bare his teeth. He could feel his eyes flash and he bore down hard on the feeling, trying to control his frustration in an effort to stave off the shadows. It had been a good day, a fucking _great_ day, and he wasn't going to ruin just because he wasn't going to get to…

"Stiles."

He blinked, met the werewolf's gaze.

"I know it was important to you," Phee said firmly, and Stiles believed him. "I know _why_ it was important to you. But today, with your dad… little buddy that might be the happiest I've ever seen you. _That's _important. I don't… I don't want you leaving again before you're ready just to get some cowboy justice."

And damn if that hesitance in his wolf's voice didn't bleed all of the fire right out of him.

"Fuck," he cursed, climbing to his feet and shoving Phee roughly back against the counter, following quickly and curling up against the wolf's chest. "You're too good for me, ya know?"

One warm hand stroked down his spine, another curled around his hip and held him close.

"I'm not…" he began, staggering over the words, the sentiment behind it. "I'm not _ready_. To go. I know I said I didn't want to come back, I know I said… a few days, but…"

"But now you're here," Phee rumbled above him and Stiles nodded against his collarbone. Pulling back, he pressed a kiss the young man's forehead, tipped his face up with a finger beneath his chin. "I told you at the start," he murmured. "Whatever you want, I'm there. But your dad's happy Stiles. God, the way he smells. I just wanna… roll around in it."

"Gross," Stiles said flatly, spreading his palm over Phee's face and pushing him back playfully, yipping when the wolf swiped his tongue over his fingers. "Stay away from my dad, _you_."

"You know what I mean. He smells like you. Like… pack. _Family_. And he's just so damned happy, it's…"

"It's nice," Stiles finished for him simply.

"Yeah," Phee agreed. "It's nice."

"I'll call Chris in the morning," Stiles consented. "I'm sure he's got somebody up there who's competent enough to deal with one rogue alpha. Come on." Grabbing Phee's hand he pulled him towards the stairs. "Let's go to bed."


	19. Chapter 19

Derek didn't come out of his pain-induced haze until darkness had fallen, his forearms aching in a way that assured him both of the major bones were still fractured, even if he had spent the whole day in bed healing up. Normally he would've been fine in an hour or two, but he didn't begrudge himself the delayed healing. He could practically feel the suppression spell bleeding out through his pores, horribly, horribly slowly, but the chains that bound his wolf were snapping one link at a time nonetheless. Pushing himself gingerly out of bed, he went and climbed into the shower, biting back a snarl at the pain of using his hands. Scrubbing down quickly, he dried off and stepped into a pair of cotton sweats and a soft, worn t-shirt, listening as he dressed.

His hearing was better, at the very least. He could hear the pack down on the first floor, all the wolves, the Banshee and the Huntress, all of them.

His family.

Dropping down the staircase, he swung through the kitchen to grab a bottle of water and build a quick sandwich, stuffing it into his mouth before heading into the living room at the back of the house. Isaac, Peter, and Lydia were the only ones who looked up when he entered, the others training their eyes carefully on the movie that played on the massive flatscreen taking up one wall. They'd heard his broken howl the night before, heard him scream this morning, and he had no doubt that they were all unsettled. They were, in essence, a wolf pack whose alpha was wounded, out of commission. They were at the disadvantage, open, vulnerable, and their very natures knew it even if Beacon Hills hadn't seen a major battle in years. He could see it in the way they curled close together in a tangled puppy pile, see it in the way they subtly bared their necks in his direction when they entered.

It was Lydia who took pity on him, much to his surprise, tucking her feet up beneath her so that he could wedge himself between her side and the arm of the couch. Stepping over arms and legs, he settled himself into the cushions, just managing not to flinch when Erica's warm fingers wrapped silently around his ankle. Dropping his hand down to where she sat on the floor in front of him, he stroked her blonde curls once, just enough for the anxiety in her scent to ease, and that simple motion seemed to relax them all, let the quiet talking and small movements resume as they actually started watching the dvd that played again. Sandwich still held between his teeth, he attempted to crack the lid off his water bottle, but the pain flared sharply in his arms and the red-headed Banshee took it from him without a word, her tentativeness a testament to the strangeness hanging over them all.

For the rest of the film he sat quietly, finished his simple meal and soaked in the presence of his pack, took strength from their closeness, power coalescing like captured rainwater, clean and sweet and pure. Eventually though, like most things, it came to an end, as whatever superhero cavorting onscreen saved the day and the credits started to roll. Boyd was the one to finally put them out of their misery, clicking off the tv and tossing the remote onto the coffee table, every head in the room turning his way; nervous, expectant. Feeling much the same himself, he sighed and decided to go for the soft start.

"You two all right?" he asked quietly, looking at Violet, who was curled up in Isaac's lap, before switching his gaze over to Lily, seated on the floor at Peter's feet. His uncle sat alone in the armchair that cornered the couch, too dignified for the pile, but the young girl was pressed heavily against his jean-clad legs, and Lydia's forearm hung over the couch's so that her elbow brushed his, still connected, still a part of it all.

Violet only nodded in reply, but Lily risked a glance up at his uncle before darting her eyes back to the floor.

"Peter said…" she began haltingly, unsure. "Peter said that Stiles is a friend? Of the pack?"

"He was," Derek answered, and it felt like a correction instead of a confirmation. "He's… been gone for a long time. But he won't hurt you. Or any of us."

"With all due respect, nephew mine," Peter scoffed, "You don't know that."

"Peter!" Derek snarled in exasperation, but Scott interrupted.

"Dude, it's Stiles!" he whimpered, ignoring Allison's silencing hand on his knee. "He's saved us, he… he loves us. He's my best friend…"

By the time the young man had trailed off his voice was shattered, and Derek could feel the pain behind them, they all could, but Peter just shook his head.

"Was," he stated coldly, "He _was _your best friend. But every one of you needs to understand this. You shut him out in a time when he needed you most, caused him more pain than you ever knew. When you should have been claiming him as a pack you pushed him away, something his very nature will have been battered by."

"But we didn't know that!" Scott protested. "We didn't know that he was a _touch_… _whatever_! I mean, what does that even…"

Peter rolled his eyes, exasperated with the boy, and Derek didn't blame him. Isaac had relayed everything Peter had said to the pack the night before while Derek had been pushed roughly to his bed cold and shaky and detached by his reluctant uncle, but apparently Scott hadn't really been listening.

"A Touchstone," Peter corrected, getting up from his chair to pour himself a whiskey from the sideboard. "There isn't much documented about them because they're so protected, but we do know that they need a pack to ground them. Wolves are a bit like an anchor, a conduit, helping them to channel their energies and control their emotions. They draw the wolves around them like a magnet, demanding their attentions… wolves have been driven mad by the presence of an unclaimed Touchstone."

At this the twins shifted fearfully, the rest of the pack hanging on to Peter's words as though they were gospel. Derek too, listened carefully; he hadn't heard this bit before. His uncle must have done some more research after Derek had eventually lost consciousness.

"So what is it they actually do?" Allison asked, and it was a fair question. "There must be a reason behind it. They wouldn't be so…" Her face pinked and she darted a nervous glance in Derek's direction before wetting her lips and continuing. "They wouldn't be so _treasured _if they weren't valuable right?"

"Very good," Peter praised sardonically, toasting the woman with his glass. "Unfortunately another question without a good answer. We know they settle a pack, make it stronger. A bit like the three beta rule. I'm just not sure how. There seems to be more than that, something… something else, but the translation…" He shook his head. "I do know that often emotion is taken on a physical pain, and rejection? Loss? Some of the worst out there. Stiles was attached to this pack for years before his nature began to emerge. With what happened, well…"

He looked up at Derek and his wolf's eyes were ice cold.

"I'm only surprised he survived it at all."

A deadly silence reigned as the reality of Peter's words sunk in, the reality of what they had done.

"I don't imagine much friendship would survive that, do you?" Peter asked. "Beyond that, we've certainly seen that he isn't the same whipped puppy you used to think he was. He tossed you like a chew toy nephew, and it's fairly clear that his command of dangerous magics is exceptional. Until we know more…"

"What more _do_ we know?" Derek finally managed, and he was as shocked as he was pleased that his voice didn't come out like the croak of a damned frog.

"We haven't heard anything from him since last night," Isaac reported, ever the alert second.

"My mom…"

Scott swallowed, blushed hard and looked at the floor.

"My mom said that he checked his dad out of the hospital around noon. The omega was with him, O'Rourke. She said he was… ok. He wouldn't really talk about… I mean, I never…"

"She doesn't know why he left," Derek finished, and his surprise was a weary sort, as though he weren't really surprised at all.

"Not really."

"And he didn't say anything."

"No. Just took his dad home. She… she's pretty mad."

"Pissed," Allison confirmed. "Not just about Stiles leaving, but…"

Derek sighed heavily, rubbing his eyes and ignoring the twinge in his arm. "The bite," he stated.

"Yeah."

"So now what?" Erica asked, and her voice was very small. Boyd pulled her in closer to his chest but her eyes remained troubled, wide and dark and fearful. "Derek I don't think I can…"

"We should take it slow," he said, bracing his feet unconsciously against the hardwood floor, preparing for the protests. "Let him come to us."

A condescending giggle broke from his left and the whole pack turned to look at the red-headed Banshee who was laughing with one hand demurely over her mouth. When she'd pulled herself together she straightened her dress primly and directed a look at the alpha that could've melted through steel as easily as one of her chemical cocktails.

"Oh sweetheart," she simpered calmly, patting his arm like he was a child. "There's no way in hell."

"Lydia…"

"No. Derek." Climbing to her feet, she brushed out her clothes and grabbed her purse from beneath the end table, clearly intending to leave. "Didn't you hear anything Peter just said? Didn't you see last night?" Huffing, she rubbed one temple wearily. "Stiles is _not_ going to come crawling back to you. You pulled back from him once and I wasn't here to stop it. Dammit! I lost my… I lost my best friend. I _won't_ lose him again."

And with that final word, she flicked her strawberry blonde locks over her shoulder and flounced out.

**XXX**

Stiles wasn't wrong when he assumed his room would look like a shrine; it did. The paint had faded and the posters on the walls were curling, but all his stuff was right where he'd left it, the Queen sized bed he'd upgraded to that last year he was home still sheeted in grey jersey. After clicking on the light he stripped to his boxers and flopped down onto the mattress, crossing his ankles and folding his arms behind his head, watching in silence from where he was propped against his Star Wars pillows as Pheelan moved quietly around the room. The wolf was a tactile creature and it brought a smile to the edges of his mouth to see him trail his fingers over Stiles' bookshelves, scent the room as dust motes swirled into the air. Eventually he sank down into the creaky, wheeled chair with the claw marks in the back, paged through the giant desk calendar that had yellowed at the edges but was still heavily marked with half a dozen different colors of ink, scrawled notes and doodles telling the story of those last months.

"Not exactly light reading," he murmured from the bed as Phee's face grew dark and solemn.

The werewolf frowned, dropping the calendar shut as he moved to the window, fingers tracing the darts in the frame where clawed fingers had splintered the wood.

"Doggie door?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow as he trailed claws around the glass.

It was his attempt at a joke, at lightening the mood that hung over them, dense and low to the floor like fog. Not the best one out there, but Stiles had to give him credit for trying.

"Once upon a time," he replied with a tired smile, trying to block the flood of memories; all the times that wolves would come and go through that window, all the times that he would turn around and they would just be _there_, without a sound or a stirring of the air.

At least until they weren't.

"You can explore in the morning," Stiles chastised gently, rolling over to give Phee 'his' side of the bed. Like he wouldn't wind up sprawled in the middle anyway. "Get the light."

Slouching down into his pillows, not _the _pillow, but still _his_ pillows, he listened while Phee moved around in the dark, shedding his clothes, and then the bed dipped and he rolled towards the wolf, curling up on his chest when he opened an arm to him. Pheelan was his pillow now, the one that traveled with him, allowed him to sleep.

That night Stiles dreamt of a fox.


	20. Chapter 20

When Stiles woke up it was still dark, his skin chilled as the nightmare sweats cooled on his arms and chest. He'd come awake with a strangled gasp, unsure where he was, and the fucked up part was that he was glad of it. It was better, more familiar to him to be strangled into consciousness out of the black and blue grip of his dreams than to come slowly and gently awake with a murmur and the unbearable weight and warmth of his quilts.

Rolling out of bed, he found his jeans in the dark and dragged them on, tossing a glance at Pheelan over his shoulder, already star-fishing across the mattress as he sought the heat Stiles should have left behind on the sheets. Mornings like these he might have woken the wolf for a glow, kissing down his chest in apology, but he hated that feeling of neediness, dependency, even if Phee would just rumble at the scent of his guilt and drag him closer, bury his face in Stiles' neck and breath like he was more content than dreaming. A glance at the clock told him in glowing digital reality that it was only just past four, and there was a quiet to the house that was almost peaceful, so instead he just wandered down the hallway, passed his father's closed door and into the bathroom, where he stared at himself in the mirror above the sink, blinking against the hard glare of the light.

His eyes were black.

Stiles felt his breath catch in his throat and his heart start to pound, fear racing like static in his fingertips as he gripped the countertop. He knew the way that his world worked, knew the consequences he faced when he molded it to his will, but this was something different, something that was quite literally darker. The honeyed-whiskey tone of his irises always darkened after a nightmare, but this was an ebony void of nothing, no separation between his pupils and the rest of his eyes, stark against the white, and that was something that he did not know. Still, there was a wicked sort of playfulness in the way they sparkled, and the answering echo inside his chest forced his lips to curl into a grin that bordered on the maniacal.

He was looking into a fox's eyes.

Shaking, Stiles tore himself away from what was reflected in the mirror, stripped off his clothes and got into the shower without waiting for the water to heat. Planting both hands against the wall, he leaned into the icy spray like it could save him, letting the water rush against his face until he felt like he was drowning and he couldn't take the suffocation a second longer. Stepping back with a gasp, he slid down the wall until he crouched in the bottom of the tub, the water still beating down on him with a feeling like shards of glass, a quivering, shivering mess as he clutched at his own arms hard enough to leave finger-shaped bruises over his elbows.

The fucking fox.

He'd never dreamt of it before, he was sure, but still he felt like he knew it. Like it belonged in that dark corner of the maze his mind was trapped in every time he closed his eyes, and he only just hadn't explored that particular corridor yet. It hadn't spoken to him, hadn't made him feel, and yet somehow it had been like an old friend, one that he knew better then he knew himself. It had stared at him for what seemed like hours, all sharp and lustrous, pink tongue lolling between black lips and fine white teeth. Stiles had been entirely empty then, as if he simply weren't, and all he could do was watch as the animal watched back, swiveling its ears, now and then switching its heavy red tail around delicate black paws.

Quiet, staring, empty.

Like winter.

Stiles broke out of the trap of his own thoughts with a start, lurching to his feet so fast he went light-headed. Grabbing on to a bar of soap, he began to scrub himself down, automatically, mechanically, suddenly desperate to get the sour sweat of dark dreams off of his skin. Rinsing off the suds he climbed out, toweled off roughly and pulled his jeans back up his hips, his gaze tight on the floor until he was out of the room and down the stairs where he rummaged through his duffel bag for Phee's black hoodie, suddenly able to actually feel the cold. Freezing, he snuggled down into the cotton, hiked the hood up around his ears and headed into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.

The bubbling sound of the percolator was just enough to noise to keep him from feeling entirely alone in the house, from looking back over his shoulder in a parody of sick paranoia. The clock on the stove told him he'd been crouching in the shower for almost two hours, told him that the sun was coming and he decided it was late enough to start breakfast, if only to give his hands something to do. He had no appetite himself, but he guessed his dad would appreciate a hot meal judging by all the open boxes of cereal in the cupboard, and Phee ate like a wolf. It was easy to find the waffle iron; it was in the same old cabinet in the back, dusty because Stiles was the only one that ever used it. By the time the coffee was done he had gotten it down and washed it up, stirred together a bowl full of batter with brown sugar and pecans. He was turning the first one out onto a plate, golden and perfect, when Phee came strolling into the kitchen, rumpled in day-old clothes and messy bedhead.

"Hey," he tossed over his shoulder before the wolf could open his mouth. His gaze had gone sharp, flaring a deep, omega gold when he caught sight of the dark circles under Stiles eyes, the bitter scent of him beneath caramelizing sugar and sweetness of maple syrup. "Hungry Butterwolf?"

"Sure," he answered, and Stiles slid a knife and a couple of bananas along the counter towards him wordlessly. "Morning sir."

"John, son, please," Stiles' dad smiled as he wandered in as well, and Stiles turned his back to hide a grin, ladling another spoonful of batter into the sizzling iron. "Waffles?"

"Brown sugar pecan," Phee answered, slicing the fruit onto a stack of two and handing the plate over to the Sheriff. "Coffee?"

The Sheriff hummed an affirmative and Stiles watched silently as Phee located a pair of mugs and poured, catered to his father not because he was attempting to make an impression, but because it was his nature. Lone wolf he may be, but he knew how to love, knew how to care. Stiles' father was important to him, and so he was important to Phee as well. Finishing the batter, he turned out a high stack of crispy, fluffy deliciousness, making sure there was enough to keep the two men stuffed fat and happy before taking a small plate for himself and joining them at the table.

"Well Stiles," the Sheriff garbled around a huge bite, "I knew I missed you for a reason."

"Oh haha," he deadpanned over Phee's chuckling laughter, pulling the bottle of syrup out of his reach in retaliation. "You got funny while I was gone I see."

"Hmm. Well if I'd known it would get you home and cooking sooner…"

"Oh God, don't say it," Stiles groaned. "You live in Beacon Hills, you should _not _be tempting fate."

The Sheriff just laughed, shook his head and reached for another waffle. "So," he asked, a pleasant distraction from Stiles' sudden realization that he was apologizing for his absence with food, "What sort of plans do you boys have for the day? Could show you around a bit, see all the changes you've missed out on."

This time it was Stiles' turn to laugh.

"Come on Dad," he grinned, "Nothing here changes. Besides, you're gonna start hurting real soon, and all you're gonna want is your chair and your pain pills."

"Hmph," John grumbled, picking at the edge of the sling he'd threaded his arm back into on waking. "Thought you took care of it."

"I kept you from turning," Stiles corrected, climbing to his feet and starting to clear the table. "I didn't knit your muscle back together. As far as I go, I've got a couple of phone calls to make, but other than that…"

"Yeah, I should probably call the station," his dad huffed. "New deputies wouldn't know their ass from their elbow without me down there. Gonna have to call Der…"

Stiles froze, not because of the name but because his dad had stopped so abruptly, choked off the word and went wide-eyed and still, guilt written all over his face. Phee looked between the two of them, obviously aware of the tension that had suddenly flooded into the room.

"Think I'll work on getting the rest of our stuff inside, yeah?" he murmured as he climbed to his feet. Stiles nodded, leading in to the wolf's touch when he squeezed his shoulder in passing for the front door. He waited until he heard the click of the latch before he moved again, his throat tight.

"It's ok dad," he managed finally, leaning in to the chill of the fridge as he put away milk, butter, and syrup, his body flashing hot. "You can… talk about them. They're a part of your life, I know that."

"Have you…"

"Yeah. I saw them, few times. We're not…" He swallowed, dumped the waffle iron into the sink and started scrubbing. "Can we not talk about this right now please?" he asked in a small voice. "They know you're all right, but if you want to call just… don't talk to them about me ok? I don't want…"

"I wouldn't do that Stiles," his dad sighed. "I haven't, not in the whole time you were gone. I only ever talked to Lydia, and only what you said I could say. You're… you're mine. You, above and before them. Always."

For a minute Stiles just stared, all the parts of him screaming with love and contentment at this, this claiming, this acceptance he was so afraid he had damaged with his leaving, and then he was moving, launching himself into his dad's embrace and throwing his arms around his neck. The Sheriff didn't speak, only held him as close as one arm would allow, rocking him back and forth as he stroked his son's hair, feeling tears hot on his neck.

"I love you dad."

"I love you too Stiles."

**XXX**

As soon as he was out onto the porch, Pheelan collapsed back against the door, breathing hard. He could hear the Stilinski men inside, feel the fear and anxiety, the guilt and the sorrow through the walls as heavily as he felt the wind that blew hard through his hair. It made him feel sick to his stomach, a wolf's instinct that something was wrong, just a flicker in the periphery of his senses. It felt like a memory; the one and only time a group of rogues had broken across the border of his parents' territory and the entire pack had charged out to make a stand, a challenge that ended in more blood than a fifteen year old was ready to see. To have that feeling again and have it be connected with Stiles made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

He'd known something was wrong as soon as he'd woken up, alone in an empty room. A part of it was the room itself sure, the scent of it - years-old Stiles and dust and decay… hell, it smelled like a tomb in there. But there was more to it too. Stiles was gone, long gone, the sheets cold where he'd slept, and he could smell the sharp, acidic sweat of fear that still clung to his pillow. He was quick to drag on his clothes and follow the sound of the young man's heartbeat to the head of the stairs, noting the water drops that still clung to the door of the shower as he passed the bathroom. Finding Stiles tucked up in his hoodie again in the middle of the kitchen hadn't dampened his suspicions, but he'd made it clear he didn't want to talk about whatever was bothering him, and all Phee knew that all he could do was wait him out.

He'd come to him eventually.

He always did.

So for now, he would wait.

Pushing off the door, Phee headed down the drive to where the SUV was parked, pausing to dig his cell phone from his jeans when it began to vibrate, groaning when he checked the caller ID.

"Mum," he greeted in Gaelic, his shoulders tensing against the tongue lashing he knew was coming.

"Pheelan Aengus O'Rourke, explain to me exactly why my mother says that you've taken the jet to the United States!"

Sighing hard into the receiver, Pheelan dragged a hand through his hair and played his trump card.

"I… I had to bring Stiles home."

A long silence met his admission before his mother replied, her voice soft and concerned this time, no longer trembling with an alpha's authority. "Is he all right?"

"Mum, I…" he began, and his words were low and quiet and small, "I don't know."

"What made him change his mind?" she asked gently.

"His father was hurt. He was hurt and Stiles saw, so I brought him home. And now his father is fine but Stiles isn't, and the pack here…"

"You're there for him my darling," she reassured him, "That's what's going to count. To him and to you. Stiles is strong, and certainly knows his own mind. Whatever he needs to do to deal with the pack there, to deal with his past, he'll do. You know that. Just be there for him."

"I'm scared for him mum," Phee breathed.

"Oh sweet boy," his mother murmured in the phone, her voice calming the rare swirl of emotion that was throwing him off his balance. "You're ruined for anyone else, the both of you. You know that don't you?"

"Mum, we're not…"

Suddenly Pheelan felt eyes on his back, his head jerking up from where he was staring at the pavement to catch the reflection of two pairs of flashing gold eyes in the back window of the SUV.

"Mum. I've got to go," he growled, disconnecting the line even as her voice protested through the phone.

Turning hard on his heel, he lifted his lip over sharp teeth and snarled viciously at the two wolves who stood nervously between the trees, a dozen or more yards back from the road. He recognized them as Hale wolves; the blonde with the huge, dark eyes and the calm, hard-muscled male with the coffee-colored skin who was holding her hand like he was the only thing keeping her from dashing across the street and breaking down the door. They shrank back from the growl that rumbled out of his chest, nervous, unsure, until the female dropped her eyes down and to the side, tilted her head in a show of submission that begged him to allow their approach. It hit him like a truck, that she was willing to do such a thing for him, an omega from a different pack, just so that she might talk, and he could only meet her halfway, crossing to the other side of the street and waiting until they came within a cautious ten feet.

"What do you want?" he asked, his anxiety forcing words out of his mouth that went against all hierarchy and protocol.

"Look, I know we're not supposed to be here," the female said, her voice tight with tears. "Derek told us to stay away..."

Pheelan's mouth twisted into a sneer. "Your alpha likes a familiar tune then?"

The female flinched, the male behind her casting his eyes to the ground.

"Please, just…" she began, and now the tears were streaming down her cheeks. "Could you please just tell us if he's ok?"

"You should be asking him," he said harshly.

The wolf's lower lip trembled as her gaze went over Phee's shoulder, staring up at the window that led to Stiles' bedroom. "I don't know how," she whispered. "Please! Please, just tell me how!"

"Why ask me?"

"You… you _know_ him," she murmured, her eyes dropping to the dark crescent of Stiles' teeth on his collar bone that had been exposed by the pull of his chest as he crossed his arms. "Better than we do, maybe… maybe better than we ever did. Couldn't you just…"

Phee sighed, scrubbed a hand over his face before hugging himself tight, chilled in just his tank top as the wind cut between the widely spaced houses. He could feel the pain in these wolves, hear it, see it, smell it, and it was nearly as sharp as that which clung to Stiles on his bad days. He wanted… hell, he knew exactly what he wanted, he just didn't like the look of the path ahead. He knew which way healing would lie for Stiles, but he wasn't sure the boy was ready for that road.

He wasn't sure he was ready to watch him take.

But it had to be better, didn't it?

Anything had to be better than living with such shadows at his back.

Frowning, Pheelan opened his mouth and spoke the words he feared might break him.

"I'll see what I can do."

* * *

**I just found out that the name Pheelan (or Phelan) comes from the Irish word for wolf. Craaaazzzzyyyy! But awesome, yeah? Let me know what you guys think (:**


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